Pacif ic Studies Series
The Political Economy of
Economic Reform in the Pacific
Edited by Ron Duncan
Pacif ic Studies Series
The Political Economy of
Economic Reform in the Pacific
Edited by Ron Duncan
© 2011 Asian Development Bank
All rights reserved. Published in 2011.
Printed in the Philippines.
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Cataloging-In-Publication Data.
Duncan, Ron (ed.)
The political economy of economic reform in the Pacific.
Mandaluyong City, Philippines: Asian Development Bank, 2011.
1. Political economy.
2. Economic reform.
3. Pacific.
I. Asian Development Bank.
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iii
Contents
Foreword
iv
Abbreviations
v
List of Contributors
1 The Political Economy of Economic Reform—by Ron Duncan
viii
1
2 An Overview of the Research on the Political Economy of Reform
in the Pacific—by Ron Duncan
15
3 A Political Economy Analysis of the Customary Land Tenure Reforms
in Papua New Guinea—by Charles Yala
33
4 Telecommunication Regulatory Reforms and the Credibility Problem:
Case Studies from Papua New Guinea and Tonga—by Siope V. ‘Ofa
63
5 Political Economy and Championing Reforms in the Cook Islands
and Samoa—by Emele S. Duituturaga
95
6 Presidential Perspectives on Political Economy in Micronesia—by Giff Johnson
and Ben Graham
115
7 Governance Reform in the Public Sector in Pacific Island Countries:
Understanding How Culture Matters—by Roderick Duncan
139
8 Achieving Revenue Reform in the Pacific: Taking Revenue Policy and
Administration Advice from Intent to Reality—by Margaret Cotton
163
9 Island Parties: How Has Political Instability Impacted on Regulatory Quality
in the South Pacific?—by Aaron Batten
191
10 Timor-Leste: Change, Stagnation, and Questions of Political Economy
—by Rod Nixon
227
11 How Pervasive is Clientelist Politics in the Pacific?—by Ron Duncan
and Graham Hassall
265
12 The Political Economy of Logging in Solomon Islands—by Matthew Allen
277
13 The Atrophied State: A Supply-Side Perspective on Politician “Slush Funds”
in Western Melanesia—by John Fraenkel
303
14 Aid, Dutch Disease, and the Pacific—by Jonathan Gouy
327
15 The Political Economy of Sugar Rents in Fiji—by Satish Chand
345
iv
Foreword
In late 2009, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) launched a new Pacific Approach, a framework
for its role in the development of its 14 Pacific developing member countries (DMCs). The Pacific
Approach requires a high level of understanding of the political economy of each DMC. For its
assistance to be most effective, ADB should have a good appreciation of how economics, politics,
and culture interact within each country. This publication, prepared as background for the Pacific
Approach, comprises a set of studies by researchers who examine the political economy of the Pacific
DMCs within different disciplinary frameworks. Some studies look at why economic reform
attempts are, or are not, successful. Others investigate how politics, economics, and culture interact
to discourage change, lead to poor governance and growth, or encourage corruption.
The project is set within the context of the recent global interest in understanding the
political economy of economic reform in developing countries. It confirms many of the conclusions
that have been drawn from that research and provides additional insights on the political economy
challenges of economic reform. The report points to ways in which ADB and other development
partners can use this knowledge to provide more effective assistance to the Pacific DMCs.
The studies reported here were undertaken under the leadership of Ron Duncan, emeritus
professor, Crawford School of Economics and Government, The Australian National University,
Canberra, and were supervised by Steve Pollard, principal economist, Pacific Department.
Robert Wihtol
Director General
Pacific Department
v
Abbreviations
ACP
ADB
AMP
APODETI
ASDT
AusAID
BAPPEDA
CAVR
CCLD
CEO
CFA
CLRC
CNRT
CPA
CPIA
CSR
DFID
DLPP
DOC
DPEIDC
DSG
DVL
EC
EMC
ERP
ESI
EU
F$
FAS
F-FDTL
FRETILIN
African, Caribbean, and Pacific
Asian Development Bank
Aliança para Maioria Parlamentar (Alliance of the Parliamentary Majority, TimorLeste)
Associação Popular Democrática Timorense (Timorese Popular Democratic
Association)
Associação Social Democrata Timorense (Timorese Social Democrat Association)
Australian Agency for International Development
Badan Perencanaan Pembangunan Daerah (Indonesian Regional Development
Planning Board)
Comissão de Acolhimento, Verdade e Reconciliação (Commission for Reception,
Truth and Reconciliation, Timor-Leste)
Committee on Customary Land Development (Papua New Guinea [PNG])
chief executive officer
Central Fiscal Authority (Timor-Leste)
Constitutional and Law Reform Commission (PNG)
Concelho Nacional da Resistência Timorense (National Council of Timorese
Resistance)
country performance assessment (ADB)
Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (World Bank)
Colonial Sugar Refining Company (FIJ)
Department for International Development (United Kingdom)
Department of Lands and Physical Planning (PNG)
Drivers of Change (DFID)
Department of Public Enterprises, Information and Development Cooperation
(PNG)
district support grant
determined value of logs
European Community
Economic Ministerial Committee (PNG)
economic reform program
estimated sustainable income
European Union
Fiji dollars
freely associated states
FALINTIL (Forças Amadas de Libertação Nacional de Timor-Leste)—Forças
Defesa de Timor-Leste (East Timor Defence Force)
Frente Revolucionária de Timor-Leste Independente (Revolutionary Front for an
Independent East Timor)
vi
Abbreviations
FSC
GATS
GDP
GMM
GSP
ha
HATAC
HOMs
HRPP
IFC
IAD
IEG
IPBC
ILG
ICCC
ICT
IGR
IMF
JDP-BPC
K
km
LPV
m
MFN
MP
NIE
PAE
PIC
PNG
MAF
MAFF
MED
MOF
NCRT
NCP
NEC
NLDAG
NLDP
NLDT
NLS
NLSCC
NLTB
NRI
NGO
Fiji Sugar Corporation Limited
General Agreement on Trade in Services
gross domestic product
generalized method of moments
Generalized System of Preferences
hectare
High Administrative, Tax and Audit Court (Timor-Leste)
heads of ministries
Human Rights Protection Party (Samoa)
International Finance Corporation
Institutional Analysis and Development
Independent Evaluation Group (World Bank)
Independent Public Business Commission (PNG)
incorporated land group
Independent Consumer and Competition Commission (PNG)
information and communication technology
institutional and governance review
International Monetary Fund
Joint District Planning and Budget Priorities Committee
kina
kilometer
limited preferential voting
meter
most favored nation
member of Parliament
new institutional economics
politician-allocated expenditure
Pacific island country
Papua New Guinea
Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (Timor-Leste)
Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (Timor-Leste)
Ministry of Economy and Development (Timor-Leste)
Ministry of Finance (Timor-Leste)
Congresso Nacional de Reconstrução de Timor (National Congress for Timorese
Reconstruction)
National Coalition Partnership (Solomon Islands)
National Executive Council (PNG)
National Land Development Advisory Group (PNG)
National Land Development Program (PNG)
National Land Development Taskforce (PNG)
National Land Summit (PNG)
National Land Summit Coordinating Committee (PNG)
Native Land Trust Board (Fiji)
National Research Institute (PNG)
nongovernment organization
Abbreviations
NZ$
NZAID
ODA
ODI
OECD
OLIPPAC
PASS
PFTAC
PNTL
RAMSI
RCDF
RDTL
RIF
SI$
SIAC
Sida
SIDS
SPS
SSR
SUNGO
TCC
TCU
UDT
UNITECH
UNPG
UNTAET
VAT
WDI
WTO
New Zealand dollars
New Zealand Agency for International Development
overseas development assistance
Overseas Development Institute
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Organic Law on Political Parties and Candidates (PNG)
People Against Switching Sides (Samoa)
Pacific Financial Technical Assistance Centre (Fiji)
Policia Nacional de Timor-Leste (Timorese National Police)
Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands
Rural Community Development Funds (Solomon Islands)
República Democrática Timor-Leste
reduction in force
Solomon Islands dollars
Solomon Islands Alliance for Change
Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency
small island developing states
Special Preferential Sugar (Agreement)
security sector reform
Samoan Umbrella of NGOs
Tonga Communications Corporation
Timber Control Unit (Solomon Islands)
União Democrática Timorense (Timorese Democratic Union)
University of Technology (PNG)
University of Papua New Guinea
United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor
value-added tax
World Development Indicators
World Trade Organization
vii
viii
List of Contributors
Matthew Allen, PhD, research fellow, Resource Management in Asia and the Pacific Project, College
of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
Aaron Batten, PhD, Aid and Debt Management Division, Malawi Ministry of Finance, Malawi.
Satish Chand, School of Business, University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force
Academy, Canberra, Australia.
Margaret E. Cotton, revenue policy and administration advisor, Pacific Financial Technical
Assistance Centre, International Monetary Fund, Suva, Fiji.
Emele Duituturaga, independent researcher and consultant, Suva, Fiji.
Roderick Duncan, PhD, senior lecturer, School of Marketing and Management, Charles Sturt
University, Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia.
Ron Duncan, emeritus professor, Crawford School of Economics and Government, College of Asia
and the Pacific, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
Jon Fraenkel, PhD, senior research fellow, State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Project,
College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
Ben Graham, management and development consultant, Majuro, Republic of the Marshall Islands.
Jonathan Gouy, economic consultant, Gouy Consulting, Canberra, Australia.
Graham Hassall, associate professor, School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington,
Wellington, New Zealand.
Giff Johnson, editor, Marshall Islands Journal, a weekly newspaper published in Majuro, Republic of
the Marshall Islands.
Rod Nixon, PhD, adjunct research fellow, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Northern Territory,
Australia.
Siope V. ‘Ofa, PhD student, Crawford School of Economics and Government, College of Asia and
the Pacific, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
Charles Yala, PhD, School of Business, University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence
Force Academy, Canberra, Australia.
1 The Political Economy
of Economic Reform
by Ron Duncan
1. Introduction
The policy reforms attempted in developing countries over the past 3 decades have yielded varied
results, with some, such as in East Asia, leading to very good outcomes in terms of economic growth.
But, there are many others where it has not been possible to implement reforms or where reforms
have achieved poor outcomes. The record in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Pacific island
countries (PICs) has been similar, with good responses to reform attempts in some countries and
disappointing results in others. During this period, ideas about what is important for growth and
development have changed significantly, from the early focus on the notion that the lack of
development was due to a shortage of capital and the need for transfers of savings from wealthy
countries to poor countries, to the subsequent focus on correcting price distortions through
structural adjustment programs, and to the recent focus on the basic institutions underpinning the
economic and political performance of countries (for a discussion of the changes in development
thinking over the past 30 years or so, see Duncan and Pollard 2002).
Within the past decade, development agencies have expressed awareness of the need to
undertake development assistance only when it is underpinned by a good understanding of the local
context of the individual countries. However, until recently little emphasis has been placed on
gaining this kind of understanding, which presumably relates to an appreciation of a country’s
economic, political, social, and cultural characteristics and the interactions between them. Within
the communal societies of the Pacific, cultural characteristics are more important than they appear to
be in the more advanced societies. Therefore, increased attention needs to be given to understanding
the cultural characteristics of Pacific economies and how they relate to economic and political
factors.
Economic reform can mean changing existing institutions, policies, legislation, and
regulations. Generally, such change will not be easy, since these elements have been shaped by
existing political, economic, and cultural forces. Hence, understanding the “local context” to provide
assistance in the design, acceptance, and implementation of reform also implies some knowledge of
how to change the status quo.
Understanding the economic, political, social, and cultural characteristics of a society and
the interactions between them is broadly the field of political economy. Because of the different
2
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
aspects of society that are involved, political economy is inevitably a field of interdisciplinary study.
Economists, political scientists, lawyers, sociologists, and anthropologists—and perhaps other
disciplines—can usefully collaborate in developing the needed understanding.
This project on the political economy of PNG, PICs, and Timor-Leste therefore draws on
the views of economists, political scientists, sociologists, and others. The Asian Development Bank
(ADB) funded the study to increase the effectiveness of the assistance that it provides to these
countries by improving understanding of their political economy.
An increasing amount of research on the political economy of developing countries has
recently been undertaken. Even more recently, research has been initiated on the political economy
of reform processes. However, very little research has been conducted on the political economy of
reform processes in the PICs. This project was established to fill these gaps.
2. The Role of Political Economy in Economic Reform
Adrian Leftwich’s (2008) definition of what he calls “politics” (but earlier called political economy) is
a good description of political economy for our purposes:
... all the many activities of cooperation, conflict and negotiation involved in
decisions about the use, production and distribution of resources. (p. 6)
As Leftwich notes, these activities may be formal or informal, public or private (or a mixture
of both), and undertaken at every level of society, from individual households and businesses to all
strata of government.
As a field of study, political economy dates back to at least the 17th century, with writers
such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus, and later, Karl Marx, being some of its most
influential English-language proponents. The field now very broadly refers to interdisciplinary
studies, drawing mainly on the disciplines of economics, politics, and law, to explain how
institutions, politics, and the economic system interact, whether nationally or internationally, to
produce economic outcomes. Other disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, and human
geography also make contributions to the broad field of political economy.
There are many more analytical approaches to the study of political economy than the
number of disciplines involved, as the practitioners of each discipline usually bring their preferred
theoretical framework to their research. For example, economists doing political economy studies
may have a classical, neo-classical, neo-Marxian, or new institutional economics view of economic
behavior, while political scientists may use rational choice theory or traditional inductive approaches.
The new institutional economics (NIE) approach pioneered by North (1990) has played an
important role in recent studies of the political economy of developing countries with respect to
economic reform. The NIE approach focuses on the basic institutions and the rules of behavior that
they establish. These rules provide the incentives to which the various actors involved in the process
react. In this context, institutions may be formal, such as constitutions, electoral systems, and
property rights, or informal, such as the norms of traditional societies or the behavioral norms of
groups such as accountants and real estate agents.
The recent focus on institutions (used in the broad economic sense) has to a large extent
been forced upon analysts and development agencies. As Acemoglu (2008) points out,
... understanding [by the economics profession] on the importance of institutions has
been reached as a result of a large body of theoretical and empirical work. In the
policy world, it has been reached more painfully, as a result of a long stream of
The Political Economy of Economic Reform
3
reforms around the world that failed mainly because they did not pay sufficient
attention to institutions and governance issues.
Besides stressing that “institutions matter,” Acemoglu also argued that while institutions do
change, we do not know how to change them; however, “our best hope is to understand what
internal dynamics of countries drive institutional changes.”
In an effort to understand how it may be possible to change institutions, Elinor Ostrom and
her research colleagues in the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana
University have placed the NIE in an analytical framework they call Institutional Analysis for
Development (IAD) to gain an understanding of the behavior of the groups that have an influence,
for better or worse, on economic development within a country (Ostrom et al. 2001). The IAD
framework is based on the assumption that most problems in development result from the inability
of people to take the necessary collective action. The delivery of public goods and the effective
management of common-pool resources require collective action by society. However, if the
established incentives, or rules of behavior of the society, provide weak or perverse incentives to
individuals or groups to act collectively for their common good, the delivery of public goods and
management of common-pool resources will be adversely affected.
As Ostrom et al. (2001) correctly point out, it is difficult, if not impossible, to change the
characteristics of public goods or services or to change the culture of a society. Trying to change the
incentives (institutions or rules) faced by the people involved is usually the only avenue open by
which to achieve a different outcome. But as they also point out, any transformation of the “rules in
use” needs to take full account of the characteristics of the community and the physical, economic,
political, and social circumstances. Most importantly, it must be understood that those presently
advantaged by the status quo will resist any changes in the rules that do not benefit them. Further,
aid agencies should be careful not to reinforce perverse incentives or to weaken government
incentives to find better policies and institutions.
The purpose of the so-called “Drivers of Change” approach, largely developed by the
Department for International Development (DFID) of the United Kingdom (UK), is also to assess
the prospects for and constraints on development from a political economy perspective. This
approach also draws to some extent on the NIE framework to study the interactions among the
economic, political, and cultural characteristics of countries by thoroughly examining the society’s
institutions and the incentives they create.
The analytical framework designed by Hausmann, Rodrik, and Velasco (2004, 2005, and
2006) to uncover the “binding constraints” to economic growth in developing countries is closely
linked—and could even be considered a precursor—to the study of the political economy of reform.
The Hausmann et al. framework focuses on the economic constraints to growth and development.
This approach recognizes that there may be many constraints to economic growth in a country but
that some constraints will dominate others; therefore, unless the dominant or most binding
constraint(s) is overcome, it is useless to attempt to remove others. The framework is similar to the
economic logic of linear programming, which identifies the most binding constraint as the one with
the highest shadow price or opportunity cost. Therefore, relaxing that constraint will have the
highest payoff. Once it is relaxed, another constraint will become the most binding. The expected
outcome of this diagnostic approach is a listing of priorities of where to focus economic reform
efforts when attempting to establish a favorable environment for investment and growth.
4
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
The framework Hausmann et al. (2004) suggest for diagnosing the most limiting constraint
is in the form of a decision tree. Recognizing that investment is the most critical factor in growth, the
purpose of the decision tree is to identify whether the most binding constraints on growth are factors
contributing to inadequate returns to investment, poor private appropriability of the returns to
investment, or the high cost of finance for investment. Within each of these categories of possible
limiting factors is a subset of factors, any of which could be the main obstacle to investment and
growth.
This diagnostic framework has been extended from identifying the economic constraints to
growth as suggested by Hausmann et al. to investigation of the possible underlying causes of those
constraints. Recognizing that underlying institutional factors may be the binding constraints to
growth rather than the more obvious proximate factors affecting investment and growth, Sugden
(2008) suggests extending the decision tree to include an additional “institutional branch,” rather
than including institutional factors at the bottom of their decision tree, as do Hausmann et al.
Sugden suggests that more emphasis be given to institutional determinants (such as effective
constitutions, well-defined and enforced property rights, impartial enforcement of contracts, and law
and order) as underlying causes of poor economic performance than do Hausmann et al. (2005, p.
7), who place emphasis on proximate causes. This extension of the framework essentially takes the
analyst to a study of the political economy.
Sugden’s “preliminary, subjective assessment” (2008, pp. 234–235) of the importance of
proximate factors and institutional factors in affecting economic performance in PICs is that “only
Cook Islands and Samoa could be thought of as having an institutional environment conducive to
economic growth,” so that for these countries “the binding constraints are more likely to be at the
proximate level.” For Fiji, the Marshall Islands, Palau, Tonga, and Tuvalu, the necessary institutional
environment for private investment and economic growth may exist, so that the constraints to
economic growth are more likely to be proximate constraints on private sector development. For the
Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, PNG, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, and Vanuatu,
Sugden’s preliminary assessment is that “the institutional environment is so weak that the binding
constraints to economic growth are very likely to be found at the underlying level.”
However, it could be observed that the existence of some of these obstacles to good
economic performance needs to be explained. What explains why an effective constitution is not in
place? What explains why a country is aid-dependent, or why aid is ineffective? It appears that we
have to dig deeply into a country’s psyche to explain these issues.
The IAD framework of Ostrom et al. (2001) provides a framework within which the
influence of the broader institutional or political economy issues on economic performance may be
examined. Therefore, Duncan (2009) and Bulatale and Duncan (forthcoming) have combined the
IAD framework with the diagnostic framework of Hausmann et al. (2005) to analyze the possible
economic constraints in Kiribati and the broader political economy issues in Fiji that may be
inhibiting economic performance. The results of these recent studies of PICs are discussed below.
The Political Economy of Economic Reform
5
3. Early Studies of the Political Economy of Reform in
Developing Countries
Two early political economy research projects on economic reform in developing countries were
Bates and Krueger (1993) and Williamson (1994). In the Bates and Krueger project, eight pairs of
economists and political scientists examined the history of economic reform in eight developing
countries, some of which had been successful reformers (Chile and the Republic of Korea), some
which had been reasonably successful (Ghana and Turkey), and others that had little success with
reform despite several attempts (Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, and Zambia). For each country, the
researchers were asked to examine the impact of interest groups on the success of the reforms and the
institutional context in which the reforms were carried out.
In the Williamson project, nine economists (most of whom held key government positions)
wrote about the experience of policy reform in developed, developing, and transitioning countries.
The economists were asked to focus on how they managed to get the reform programs accepted.
Subsequently, a conference was held where political scientists who had been writing on economic
reform programs (and most of whom had been involved in the earlier Bates and Krueger project)
were asked to comment on the country papers. The country authors were also asked to discuss the
applicability of 13 often-competing hypotheses in explaining when policy reform is possible. These
hypotheses included the idea that policy reform is most likely following a crisis, when opposition to
the reform is discredited, when the reforming government has won a mandate for change, when
there is a visionary leader, or when there is an authoritarian or rightist government.
The Williamson volume concluded that the evidence strongly supported the hypotheses
suggesting the need for a strong political base, for visionary leadership, and for a coherent economic
team. It also concluded that authoritarian or right-wing governments are not necessary for successful
reform. However, there is little in the way of insights provided into the political processes or the
institutional arrangements that make effective implementation of reform possible (Duncan 1995).
The Bates and Krueger volume is somewhat more insightful. In response to the observation
that interest groups appeared to have little or no role in initiating reforms, they suggest that the
outcome of reform is subject to such uncertainty that interest groups’ decisions are influenced more
by ideology than by statements about the incidence or impacts of policies. It is concluded that
because of uncertainty about the future size and distribution of the benefits of reform, and the more
immediate and concentrated nature of its costs, the status quo is likely to be maintained unless there
is a change of government. However, there are exceptions to this finding, such as Mexico. The
structure of political competition is also examined. For example, in countries with one-term
presidents, such as Mexico, the president may undertake reforms that would not be considered if
running for office again. Compare this situation to democracies where the political term is not fixed
and leaders struggle to remain in power.
Bates and Krueger find that reform efforts lead to the restructuring of interest group
representation and to changes in political institutions. One change that they highlight is the
strengthening of the executive branch of government and of the finance ministry. An important role
of this restructuring is to protect the technocrats within these core ministries from pressure from
interest groups—except, of course, from the pressure of the interest groups that benefit from the
reforms. Bates and Krueger also point to the importance of a well-trained team of policy advisers
who are somehow protected from interest-group pressure. This conclusion highlights the importance
6
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
of education in developing cadres of highly skilled, local advisers, as well as the need to understand
countries’ political, cultural, and institutional systems.
4. Recent Research on the Political Economy of Reform
Following the Krueger and Bates and Williamson projects, there was little in the way of political
economy studies of the factors underpinning economic reform and why some reform attempts fail,
until the 1990s’ realization of the importance of institutions in explaining behavior related to
development, and of understanding the local context, if development assistance was to be successful.
Interest in these issues has led to the extensive use of political economy studies of economic reform in
developing countries over the past decade. Initially, the studies focused on the interactions between
economics and politics in the reform process. But these studies led to staff frustration in the
development agencies, particularly officers in the field, who argued that these political economy
issues were reasonably well understood; what they really wanted to know was how to bring about
change. The most recent studies have been more focused on this particular question, which is also
the main question behind this project.
Early in the new millennium, major development agencies began to take more interest in
the interaction between a developing country’s politics and its success in attempts at reform. The
main agencies involved were DFID, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency
(Sida), and the World Bank. DFID’s approach to the issue became the Drivers of Change (DOC)
framework; Sida’s approach focused on power relationships within an economy and how they
affected the success of development projects; and the World Bank, which began its Institutional and
Governance Reviews in 1999, was relatively narrowly focused on the institutional roots of
government performance, while still taking account of the country’s political realities.
The first DOC study funded by DFID was on Bangladesh and published in 2002 (Duncan
et al. 2002). All nine of the potential DOCs identified by the study were entities, such the media,
reform-minded public officials, nongovernment organizations, rural-based organizations, and
business organizations; compared with later studies, this was a rather narrow interpretation of
DOCs. The main recommendations in relation to the study’s political economy aspects were
concentrated on how to improve the capacity of these actors to influence change. The impact of the
report is reflected in a 2006 review of the use of DOC analysis in Bangladesh, where it was
concluded that “the political-economy focus of drivers-of-change analysis has had modest apparent
impact overall” (Batkin et al. 2006).
In June 2003, DFID established a dedicated but temporary DOC team within its policy
division to support country-led work on DOC studies. Rather than attempting to set out a particular
methodology, the team set out a series of questions around which to frame analysis of the political
economy of the developing countries (DFID 2004). The DOC team was disbanded in September
2004. Up to 2005, DOC reports were prepared for more than 20 countries. Most of these were subSaharan Africa countries.
In 2005, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Development
Assistance Committee commissioned the Institute of Development Studies Sussex to undertake a
review of the Power and Drivers of Change analyses in development cooperation (Dahl-Østergaard
et al. 2005). Given the early stage of the development of thinking about these issues and the different
points from which they began, it is unsurprising that the report concluded that there was not a
common approach among the agencies toward examining how the policy environment is shaped by
political, economic, social, cultural, and institutional factors.
The Political Economy of Economic Reform
7
The Dahl-Østergaard et al. (2005) report found that within DFID there was tension
between the emphasis on DOC analysis of political processes and the perceived need for longer
timescales for fundamental change versus the pressure to increase spending in Africa and to pursue
short-term interventions to achieve Millennium Development Goals. Within the World Bank,
political analysis was not yet mainstream but there was growing recognition that many desirable
policies were not politically feasible. Hence, there was the question of identifying steps that would
eventually lead to change. At the same time, undertaking country political analysis was resisted
because it was seen as contravening the bank’s articles. At an operational level there was skepticism
about the usefulness of “high level” analysis that did not generate operational recommendations.
The earliest of the political economy studies into reform processes, funded by the UK’s
Overseas Development Institute (ODI), was an analysis of the reforms in India’s state of Andhra
Pradesh (Mooij 2003). This study was described as being a blend of political science, sociology, and
anthropology and followed the political science body of literature known as the Conceptualization of
Policy Processes (COPP). Reforms in Andhra Pradesh, primarily to improve governance, were
claimed by the authorities to have been implemented in a process that was largely free of politics.
The study challenged this claim and argued that in fact the whole process had been fundamentally
political and that the ruling party, under a strong leader, had achieved the reforms by “establishing
the dominant discourse.” That is, it set the framework and logic upon which the discussion of the
reforms was undertaken.
Consistent with the COPP criticism of the “linear model” of the policy process, Mooij
(2003) argued that the reforms had not followed the accepted stages: agenda setting, policy
formulation, implementation, and evaluation. This linear model was said to be commonly followed
by the major development agencies, who believed that once a policy decision was made, execution
should follow, and that lack of success should be blamed on bottlenecks or, most commonly, “lack of
political will.” This criticism of the role of development agencies had been made earlier by Thomas
and Grindle (1990).
Contrary to the linear model, Mooij (2003) said that the policy reform in Andhra Pradesh
illustrated that policy processes should be seen as the working out of interactions between interest
groups and that the outcomes cannot be established in advance. However, those with more power
(influence) are more likely to have their way. Further, institutional arrangements may affect the
bargaining process between groups and may favor some groups more than others.
ODI followed the research in Andhra Pradesh with a study of public policy making in
Ghana (Booth et al. 2005). This was the first of ODI’s DOC studies. DOC analysis was seen as a
way “to describe in a robust, evidence-based way the underlying factors which shape the incentives
for economic, social and political change.” In particular, it was an attempt to explain the “lack of
political will” commonly seen as being the main obstacle to economic reform.
Ghana’s state was described as “neo-patrimonial,” effectively serving the “interests of the
particular groups and individuals that have captured it.” The relationship between business and
government was “very much in the patron–client mould.” After describing the interaction between
social, political, and economic forces that had constrained investment, openness to competition, and
growth, the economic DOCs were identified as (i) increased international trade and competition,
(ii) greater competition and efficiency among financial institutions, (iii) foreign direct investment,
and (iv) stronger employment generation.
But these changes would not happen unless political DOCs were in place. These were
identified as (i) intensified competition between political parties, (ii) the free flow of information and
8
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
an increasingly critical mass media, (iii) an increased role in Ghana’s political and economic life of its
diaspora, and (iv) the vigorous growth of civil society. It was argued that progress in any one of these
political areas would stimulate progress in others and in the economic drivers. However, there were
no suggestions as to priorities for action or for how progress in any one of the political or economic
DOCs could be brought about. In fact, here, as elsewhere in DOC analysis, there is no analytical
basis within the DOC framework from which the identification of priorities for action or the means
to bring about changes can be derived.
The next DOC study by ODI was of the political economy of Malawi (Booth et al. 2006).
From this research it was seen that the Malawi state had been captured by patronage networks and
that there was “no sign of democratisation generating a more issue-based, performance-oriented
politics.” The main issue facing reformers was that politicians “have disempowered and corrupted the
civil service, undermining the capacity to generate coherent, technically-grounded policy
approaches.”
The economic DOCs were identified as (i) policy consistency, (ii) long-term vision,
(iii) strong leadership, (iv) prioritization of objectives and resources, and (v) improved performance
of the civil service. The political DOC was seen as gradual progress in democratic government. The
following implications for development agencies and aid donors were also suggested: (i) more realism
about the long-term nature of the development challenges that Malawi faces, (ii) less certainty and
more humility about the solutions, (iii) more willingness to compromise and support joint efforts,
and (iv) more emphasis on political economy as a central issue.
While the pointers toward improved performance by development agencies were useful, the
DOC analysis did not offer practical recommendations on the priorities for action or on how to
bring about the desired reforms. Thus, the reason for frustration on the part of development
agencies’ operational staff is obvious.
In 2005, in its Economic and Social Progress in Latin America 2006 Report (Stein et al. 2005),
the Inter-American Development Bank also showed interest in “what determines the ability to
design, approve and implement effective public policies” (p. 5). The report described the outcomes
of an extensive exercise in what was described as an interdisciplinary (economics and political
science), cross-country analysis of Latin America. The analysis had a strong flavor of new
institutional economics in its “detailed look at the institutional arrangements and political systems at
work in Latin America, as they shape the roles and incentives of actors that participate in the policy
making process.”
Ten lessons were identified. Broadly, these captured the now fairly well-accepted notions
that the policy-making process is complex and needs to be country-specific. Effective political parties,
a strong policy-making legislature, an independent judiciary, and a well-developed civil service were
seen as essential institutions. Moreover, keeping these “good” institutions in place depends upon
political incentives for positive behavior. Further, leaders can play a vital role as catalysts in the
development of such institutions. But, again, there was no direction given as to how to bring about
the needed changes.
A 2006 World Bank study of a successful effort to reform the legal infrastructure governing
public procurement in the Philippines, the Government Procurement Reform Act 2003, did
generate some useful operational recommendations (Campos and Syquia 2006). While this reform
relates to the passing of a particular piece of legislation, it does have lessons for how to generate
successful policy reform. The main lesson is the necessity to create a coordinated team capable of
responding to events, unforeseen or anticipated, as the reform process unfolds, including
The Political Economy of Economic Reform
9
mechanisms able to deal with uncertainty on a day-to-day basis. Other elements seen as important in
having the legislation passed were the production of in-depth technical studies of the implications of
the legislation, a well-thought-out communication strategy to mobilize public action, and the
fostering of support from knowledgeable legislators.
The year 2007 saw a larger number of development agencies become interested in these
political economy issues. The Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID)
commissioned a DOC study on Vanuatu (Cox et al. 2007), which identified various economic and
political obstacles to better economic and development performance, but without any prioritization
of the changes needed or advice on how to achieve them.
Also in 2007, under a regional technical assistance project, Strengthening Country
Diagnosis and Analysis of Binding Development Constraints in Selected Developing Member
Countries, ADB initiated a series of studies on binding constraints. Following the Hausmann et al.
(2005) framework, the purpose of the studies was to “establish priorities among many candidate
policies and institutional reforms aimed at sustained and broad-based growth.”
The first ADB binding constraints study was of the Philippines (ADB 2007). The report
identifies several constraints on economic growth and poverty reduction, such as the tight fiscal
situation, high-cost infrastructure, and poor governance and corruption that saps investor
confidence. However, the report does not attempt to prioritize these constraints for removal, as the
Hausmann et al. (2005) framework implies, nor does it examine how the political economy
environment may be constraining change or give directions on how to bring about change.
In retrospect, it seems that the design of ADB’s work in this area could have been
improved—by focusing on the political economy constraints to overcoming the economic binding
constraints—if attention had been paid to a 2002 report from its Economics and Research
Department (Abonyi 2002). This study asked why policy-based lending had made such a limited
contribution to policy reforms and how to implement the extensive changes usually necessary in
policy reform. It concluded that “the design of policy-based initiatives should reflect an assessment
and understanding of the policy reform environment as is, including implementation conditions,
constraints, and requirements” (p. 2).
The next study in the ADB binding constraints series was on Nepal, which was undertaken
in collaboration with DFID and the International Labour Organization (ADB 2009b). This report
goes further than the Philippines report in that it has a chapter that examines the political and
governance constraints to improving growth prospects. Problem areas such as political instability,
rent seeking and clientelism, corruption, and crime are identified. But no recommendations are
made as to how to overcome the constraints.
There are useful hints for development cooperation partners such as (i) recognizing the
governance and political economy constraints to bringing about change to the status quo, (ii) do no
harm, (iii) identify quick wins, (iv) avoid overloading the government, and (v) help to develop
national ownership. There are also suggestions on how further research may answer the question of
how to overcome binding constraints:
Any discussion of the way forward will need to be informed by further analysis of the
political economy... to explain more fundamentally why things are the way they are
and what policy options might appeal sufficiently to different stakeholders before
agreeing on further action. This will require further mapping of the institutions
involved, understanding each stakeholder’s interests and incentives and the potential
drivers of change. (p. 117)
10
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
A draft ADB binding constraints report has been prepared on Indonesia in collaboration
with the International Labour Organization and the Islamic Development Bank (ADB 2009a). The
report identifies the following critical constraints to economic growth, poverty reduction, and
environmental sustainability: (i) inadequate and inefficient infrastructure, (ii) weaknesses in
governance and institutions, (iii) corruption and terrorism, (iv) unequal access to and poor quality of
education, and (v) insufficient mainstreaming of environmental concerns in development plans.
There is no attempt to identify priorities for relaxing the binding constraints, nor does it attempt to
map the political economy and use that understanding to find ways to overcome those constraints.
However, perhaps the authors do see this as the way forward, as the report concludes that further
studies are needed to “... explore the constraints in greater depth. The in-depth studies will also help
identify options that policymakers can adopt in overcoming the constraints to inclusive and green
economic growth.”
5. How Far Have We Come?
A recent study by ODI, funded by DFID, illustrates the progress that has been made in thinking
about the role of political economy analysis in assisting with the implementation of economic
reforms (Booth and Golooba-Mutebi 2009). This study adopted what it called a “layered” approach
to the political analysis of road reform in Uganda; it added a wider range of political economy tools
than had previously been used in DOC analysis. The layers used were
„
identification of systemic constraints arising from the institutional context (typical of DOC
and binding constraints analysis, which has produced little of operational significance);
„
analysis of the pattern of stakeholder interests, direction, and extent of their influence, and
the factors influencing their choices (essentially, what incentives are they responding to?);
and
„
assessment of the “room for maneuver,” or scope for different outcomes, created by
dynamic aspects of the change process.
This approach recognizes that political economy analysis must go beyond describing the
relationships between economic, political, social, and cultural factors, and move toward identifying
the incentives to which the stakeholders are responding and determining whether the incentives can
be changed in order to generate different behavior. The “room for maneuver” analysis is drawn from
the work of Grindle (2002) on social reform in Latin America.
The report examines whether there is scope for movement on the needed reforms with
respect to (i) a shift in presidential priorities, (ii) recent institutional changes opening opportunities
for reform, or (iii) the dynamics of the reform process. It was decided that (iii) offered the most
realistic possibilities for donor-supported action to “tip the balance in a pro-reform direction.” While
there is no formal analysis of the incentives that various stakeholders respond to, the overall approach
has taken research in this area further toward the goal of generating operationally useful
recommendations.
The point that political economy studies have reached, as expressed through the ODI report
on Uganda, is similar to that reached by Duncan (2009) in a report on Kiribati. An earlier study
carried out for the World Bank (Duncan and Nakagawa 2007) had identified the binding constraints
to economic growth in Kiribati as being clientelist politics, which results in nepotism, corruption,
and conflicts of interest in contract awards rather than the provision of widespread public goods. It
was argued that politicians operating in such an environment will prefer not to support security of
The Political Economy of Economic Reform
11
property rights and contract enforcement—institutions that encourage private sector development—
as their establishment will undermine the payoff from rent-seeking activities.
Therefore, in the Duncan (2009) study for ADB, the Institutional Analysis for
Development (IAD) framework developed by Ostrom et al. (2001) was used to investigate the role of
political economy in preventing collective action leading to the provision of public goods. IAD
analysis provides a framework within which to analyze the incentives (both positive and perverse) to
which the various stakeholders are responding. Similar to the ODI report on Uganda, Duncan’s
report on Kiribati identified that the “room for maneuver” for reform was provided by the
President’s interest in reforming the many state-owned enterprises dominating the economy and the
presence of a small group of senior public officials who understood and sympathized with the need
for reform. The report also recommended providing technical assistance to develop material to
promote public understanding about the reforms, and providing continuing support to the President
and his team.
In a March 2008 World Bank–hosted workshop on sequencing public financial
management (PFM) reform, Edward Hedger of ODI summed up what that organization had
learned from its many political economy studies about the factors contributing to the success of PFM
reform. He identified six success factors:
„
political commitment (leadership),
„
senior technocratic leadership,
„
organizational strategic management capability within the public sector,
„
domestic demand for reform from outside the executive,
„
appropriate and coherent external technical advice (and pressure), and
„
logic and coherence of technical reforms.
With the exception of the fourth factor (domestic demand for reform from outside the
executive), these lessons replicate those that can be drawn from the Bates and Krueger (1993) and
Williamson (1994) projects. The fourth factor is now generally understood as the necessity of
promoting domestic “ownership” of reforms if they are to be successful.
Are there other lessons that can be drawn from the many political economy studies on
reforms that have been undertaken over the past decade? The World Bank study on the passage of
public procurement legislation in the Philippines (Campos and Syquia 2006) has some useful
lessons, as well as confirming the importance of in-depth studies for informing politicians and the
general public about the impact of the reform and the need for political leadership. These lessons are
the need for a well-coordinated support team capable of responding to events as the reform process
unfolds and a well-developed communication strategy to mobilize public action. In the report on
Kiribati, Duncan (2009) identified the same lessons and also highlighted the desirability of
(i) finding ways to change stakeholder incentives to positively influence desirable collective action on
reform and (ii) analyzing what “room for maneuver” may be available to implement reform.
12
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
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Growth, and Development Decision Making by D. North, D. Acemoglu, F. Fukuyama, and D.
Rodrik, a Joint Department for International Development (DFID)–World Bank Workshop in
London on 5 November 2008.
Abonyi, G. 2002. Toward a Political Economy Approach to Policy-Based Lending. Economics and
Research Department (ERD). ERD Working Paper Series No. 14. Manila: Asian Development Bank
(ADB).
ADB. 2007. Philippines: Critical Development Constraints. Economics and Research Department.
Country Diagnostics Studies. Manila.
———. 2009a. Indonesia Country Diagnostic Study. Interim report. Undertaken in collaboration
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———. 2009b. Nepal: Critical Development Constraints. Undertaken in collaboration with DFID
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Bates, R.H., and A.O. Krueger, eds. 1993. Political and Economic Interactions in Economic Policy
Reform. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
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Booth, David, et al. 2005. What are the Drivers of Change in Ghana? Ghana Center for Democratic
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261. London: ODI.
Booth, D., and F. Golooba-Mutebi. 2009. Aiding Economic Growth in Africa: The Political
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Bulatale, R., and R. Duncan. Binding Constraints to Economic Growth in Fiji. Forthcoming.
Campos, J.E., and J.L. Syquia. 2006. Managing the Politics of Reform: Overhauling the Legal
Infrastructure of Public Procurement in the Philippines. World Bank Working Paper No. 70.
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Reduction Strategy. ERD Working Paper Series No. 15. Manila: ADB.
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International Economics.
2 An Overview of
the Research on
the Political Economy of
Reform in the Pacific
by Ron Duncan
1. Introduction
The individual studies reported in the following 13 chapters took many different “cuts” at the
political economy of the countries involved. There are region-wide, country-specific, and sectorspecific studies, as well as studies of specific reforms and the activities of particular individuals and
individuals in particular positions. There was an attempt to have a representation of Melanesian,
Polynesian, and Micronesian countries. No uniform analytical framework was imposed; researchers
were free to apply the analytical framework that they saw as most productive in studying this
phenomenon. By examining the interactions between the political, economic, social, and cultural
characteristics of the countries from different angles and through different disciplinary lenses, the
intent was to deepen understanding of the political economy of these countries and improve the
effectiveness of any development assistance provided.
This chapter provides an overview of the research undertaken and situates it within the
context of the political economy studies undertaken around the developing world over the past
decade, as reviewed in Chapter 1. The chapter also draws out the operational lessons for developing
countries considering or attempting economic reform and for development cooperation agencies
assisting in the process. In some cases, the studies confirm lessons that have already been learned
elsewhere; in others, new lessons have been learned, particularly those relevant to the special
circumstances of the Pacific island countries (PICs) themselves.
2. Factors Underpinning Successful Reform
Several of the studies analyze successful economic reforms in the PICs. The revision of land
legislation, particularly that relating to the leasing of customary land in Papua New Guinea (PNG),
is discussed by Charles Yala in Chapter 3, “A Political Economy Analysis of the Customary Land
Tenure Reforms in Papua New Guinea.” In Chapter 4, “Telecommunication Regulatory Reforms
and the Credibility Problem: Case Studies from Papua New Guinea and Tonga,” Siope ‘Ofa
16
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
examines the struggle over the recent opening of the telecommunication market in the Pacific,
particularly in PNG.
The Cook Islands and Samoa undertook successful macroeconomic reforms in the mid1990s in the wake of financial crises. In Chapter 5, “Political Economy and Championing Reforms
in the Cook Islands and Samoa,” Emele Duituturaga looks into the factors that were important in
ensuring the success of these reforms.
On 19 March 2009, two pieces of legislation aimed at mobilizing land held under
customary tenure for development in PNG were passed unanimously by Parliament. The passage of
this legislation was in sharp contrast to the two earlier attempts to reform land legislation relating to
customary land. Protests opposing customary land tenure reform, led by students, nongovernment
organizations (NGOs), and trade unions, resulted in the destruction of property worth millions of
kina in 1995 and 2002 and four deaths in 2002.
The PNG government, through the minister for lands and physical planning, began the
land reform program in 2005. The government saw this as a fundamental reform initiative aimed at
achieving the growth target set in its Medium Term Development Strategy 2005–2010. The land
reform program was focused on four objectives: improving the system of land administration,
improving the system of land dispute settlement, developing a framework for mobilizing land held
under customary tenure for broadly based economic growth and development, and the development
of institutions that would form the basis for a viable land and properties market.
In 2005, the government launched a National Land Summit, which was to seek a mandate
on land reform following intensive public discussion. The land reform program was deliberately
designed as a PNG initiative to foster ownership. The conceptual and technical papers presented at
the summit were written by PNG academics, bureaucrats, and participants from other stakeholder
groups such as businesses and NGOs. Donors were deliberately excluded from the very sensitive
proceedings, although the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) played a key
background role in providing financial support to the reform program activities. While donors did
not provide technical assistance, they were briefed throughout on progress.
The government accepted the recommendations from the report of the summit in October
2005 and established the National Land Development Taskforce, which began work in February
2006. An integral contribution to the success of the reform process was the public relations exercise.
Stakeholder groups were identified and considerable efforts were made to understand their interests
and concerns, and, where necessary, to accommodate them. Students and NGOs had been major
opponents of previous land reform efforts, so special attention was given to involving them; for
example, essay competitions were held for secondary and tertiary students. The findings from the
summit were widely disseminated, and task forces were formed to consult with the country’s many
linguistic groups.
Another important dimension of the land reform program was the political and intellectual
leadership. The then-minister for lands and physical planning—and later the deputy prime minister
and minister for lands and physical planning—provided political leadership throughout the whole
process. There was also stability in the intellectual and technical leadership provided by members of
research institutes, the bureaucracy, and academia.
The parallels between how this land reform program was carried out and the successful
effort to reform the public procurement legislation in the Philippines discussed in Chapter 1
(Campos and Syquia 2006) are striking. Both have similar lessons on how to generate successful
policy reform. First, there is the importance of champions; in both cases these were in the political,
An Overview of the Research on the Political Economy of Reform in the Pacific
17
bureaucratic, and academic arenas. Moreover, the stability of this leadership during the reform
process was essential, as was the leaders’ influence in widening support in various arenas. Second,
there is the necessity to create a support team capable of responding to events over the life of the
reform process. Third, the production of in-depth studies supporting the reform is critical. Fourth, a
comprehensive communications strategy to generate public understanding of the reforms, allow
concerns to be expressed, develop ownership of the reforms, and mobilize public action was also
central to reform success.
Siope ‘Ofa’s chapter on telecommunication reform in PNG and Tonga confirms one of
these lessons and raises the possibility of others. Leadership was critical to telecommunication reform
in both countries. In Tonga, the king’s divestment of his interest in the monopoly mobile phone
provider, TonFon, and his commitment to liberalizing the sector were critical in overcoming
political and public resistance. In PNG, the leadership was provided by other means.
The PNG government had made a commitment in 1996–1997 to opening the
telecommunication sector through its World Trade Organization (WTO) telecommunication
commitments. The cabinet, through the National Executive Council (NEC), followed up on this
commitment with its decision in December 2005 to introduce competition in mobile telephony
services. In this decision, Telekom PNG Ltd, the government monopoly telecommunication
provider, was to terminate its mobile phone service by 31 March 2006. The Independent Consumer
and Competition Council (ICCC), the economic regulator, was to then select two new mobile
phone licensees. March 2007 was the date set for open competition in the mobile phone market.
However, in September 2006, Telekom PNG refused to relinquish its monopoly. The
government simultaneously released a new information and communication technology policy that
reneged on the December 2005 NEC decision. Despite the new policy, ICCC went ahead and
selected two new mobile phone providers through public tender and announced these in accordance
with the timeline previously set. In March 2007, telecommunication technical regulator Papua New
Guinea Radiocommunications and Telecommunications Technical Authority (PANGTEL)
attempted to revoke the spectrum license that it had issued to Digicel PNG Ltd, an Irish-based
mobile phone company that was one of the two new licensees. Digicel launched its mobile phone
service anyway in May 2007 (a few months after the deadline for open competition set by NEC).
Besides taking court action to prevent PANGTEL from revoking its spectrum license,
Digicel received support from a visit to PNG by the Irish ambassador to Australia and PNG, who no
doubt reminded the government of its WTO commitments to telecommunication liberalization. In
September 2008, the PNG government also received a letter from the European Commission
reminding it of its WTO telecommunication commitments.
Mobile phone competition has proceeded in PNG despite further attempts to prevent full
competition by delaying interconnection between Digicel and B-Mobile, Telekom PNG’s mobile
phone provider, and allowing Telekom PNG to maintain its monopoly over the international
gateway. Interconnection did not occur until July 2008. Prior to this, most people had been carrying
two mobile phones.
ICCC championed the telecommunication reforms throughout this long route, although it
suffered in the process by the government taking away its role as regulator of the telecommunication
sector and handing it to another body that is dominated by government officials. This action may
well present future risks of regulatory capture. These events demonstrate that a champion of reform
need not be an individual but may be an organization. They also demonstrate that an independent
regulator of utilities is subject to regulatory capture and may prove to be a fragile foundation for
18
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
reform. On the other hand, the WTO telecommunication commitments that PNG had undertaken
proved to be a strong means of locking in the reforms.
Siope ‘Ofa argues that Tonga’s WTO telecommunication commitments were also
important in underpinning the reform in that country. Hence, international treaties that have
“teeth,” such as the WTO with its dispute settlement provisions, can be helpful in initiating and
sustaining reforms.
Another helpful lesson from these reform processes is that the demonstration of widespread
consumer benefits can also help initiate and sustain reforms. As ‘Ofa illustrates, mobile phone
services have become more widely available and considerably cheaper in both countries following
open competition. It is likely that many existing and potential telephony consumers in Tonga were
aware of the benefits of competition because of the extensive emigration of Tongans to metropolitan
countries, where they had the opportunity to compare the cost, quality, and availability of services
with services at home.
This was clearly not the case in PNG, a country where most people have little contact with
others in their own country, let alone in other countries. Obviously realizing this, Digicel
immediately made mobile phones and services widely available when launching its mobile phone
service. This action had the enormously important effect of preventing the government from
backsliding on its commitment to open competition. This reaffirms the lesson from Charles Yala’s
chapter about the importance of disseminating information about the benefits of the reform.
Emele Duituturaga’s chapter on the factors important in the success of the mid-1990s’
macroeconomic reforms in the Cook Islands and Samoa confirms several of the success factors
identified in the previous two chapters. Strong, visionary, and stable leadership was a common
central ingredient. In Samoa, there was such leadership at the highest levels of politics and the civil
service. In the Cook Islands, the leader was the Prime Minister. The reform process in Samoa was
underpinned by linking it strongly to the local culture, giving a blend of Fa’a Samoa (the Samoan
Way) and adoption of western institutions.
Local ownership of the reforms was achieved through the use of public consultations.
National retreats or summits, together with the widespread distribution of statements of intent and
discussion of reform proposals, helped to build ownership in the face of considerable opposition.
Evidence of the benefits of reform in Samoa, in the form of infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and
airports, also helped to sustain the reforms. In both cases, NGOs were used to provide support for
the reforms, especially in the remote areas that government services have difficulty in reaching.
3. Leadership in the Pacific
The importance of leadership in driving reforms comes across clearly from the successful cases
discussed. This is particularly true of leadership at the highest political and civil service levels, and
leadership that can provide consistency over the lengthy periods that are needed for some, perhaps
most, reforms to be implemented. In Chapter 6, “Presidential Perspectives on Political Economy in
Micronesia,” Giff Johnson and Ben Graham provide insights into the thinking of five former
presidents of the Micronesian nations—the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and
Palau—about the political economy of their countries.
These leaders stressed that reform proponents need to be cognizant of the long-standing
“welfare state” attitudes in these Micronesian countries and how they shape public perceptions about
the role of government and influence governance and decision making. The countries face major
challenges to increased economic independence as a consequence of the heavy reliance on aid flows
An Overview of the Research on the Political Economy of Reform in the Pacific
19
from the Compact of Free Association with the United States, which encourage the welfare mind-set,
patronage politics, and nepotism.
Other views from the leaders reinforce conclusions already drawn about the importance of
development partners treating reforms as a long-term process. They must move step-by-step in
reform programs rather than taking large leaps, and conduct extensive public consultation to
overcome resistance to reform and promote local ownership, especially in the more remote areas
where media coverage is not very strong. National summits to discuss reform proposals were also
seen as important, as was the formation of task forces to make the discussions more inclusive.
Further, reforms should be consistent with the local culture. In this respect, identification of the
major influences on political decision making—for example, traditional leaders, religious leaders,
landowners, business owners, and wealthy families—is important. It was remarked that religious
groups and wealthy families appear to be gaining influence in Micronesia, including those from
outside the countries.
Earlier fiscal reforms to meet the challenges of the decline in Compact funding have been
reversed, with public expenditure again increasing at a faster rate than revenues. This problem
magnifies the challenge on the horizon from the ending of Compact funding. There is potential for
instability and social unrest if the private sector does not grow sufficiently to replace a considerable
portion of the development aid being lost.
4. What Can Explain Unsuccessful Reform Attempts?
In Chapter 7, “Governance Reform in the Public Sector in Pacific Island Countries: Understanding
How Culture Matters,” Roderick Duncan looks into why governance reform in the PICs over the
past decade or so has been so unsuccessful. He concludes that despite development agencies
acknowledging the importance of understanding the local context, they have done little to inform
themselves about the political economy, particularly the political culture, of these countries. Duncan
argues that many of the political cultural values that were in place before colonization remain in
place and heavily influence governance in these economies.
ADB has emphasized the importance of better governance in its Pacific Strategy papers
going back to 1996. In its 2005–2009 Pacific Strategy paper, governance was placed at the center of
the bank’s reform agenda. For AusAID and the New Zealand Aid Programme (NZAID), governance
reform has been an increasingly important priority since the early 1990s. Duncan asks, “What is not
clear is whether improvements in governance are a priority of Pacific politicians, public servants, and
influential individuals?”
In attempting to explain the apparent lack of enthusiasm for governance reform in the
Pacific, Duncan focuses on the political aspects of Pacific culture, specifically concepts of leadership
and obligations within political hierarchies. He points out that modern institutions, such as public
service departments, elected politicians, and central banks, have to coexist with a Pacific political
culture that largely determines how politicians and public servants will behave. Most of the current
political leaders and other influential members of the PICs grew up in pre-independence times, and
their actions are still guided by the norms and expectations of the Pacific political culture.
While Duncan believes that “big man” political culture is currently the main obstacle to
governance reforms in the Pacific, it could also be part of the solution to the Pacific’s development
problems, given properly designed institutions. In making this argument, he draws on three features
of Pacific political culture: the importance of distribution, the public nature of gifts and the
obligations that flow from them, and the competitive nature of big men.
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
In distributing public resources, the big man acquires the same status and influence as when
distributing village resources. The context has changed, but the values have not. Diversion of public
resources is often labeled “corruption,” but many of these activities are expected of big men. As long
as the local big man is diverting public resources to his supporters, and not hoarding them for
himself, it is appropriate behavior under traditional cultural norms.
Because gifts are a means of gaining status for the big men, gift giving has to be public and
preferably splashy. The public aspect of gift giving means that the gift recipient’s supporters know
what was exchanged, and that the gift and the obligation on the person receiving the gift are
acknowledged.
In today’s Pacific societies, the big men have moved into influential positions in the
government, either through politics or in the public service, and aim to use their positions to divert
government spending or control the awarding of lucrative contracts. Voters expect big men to divert
public resources for their benefit. Corruption is perceived to be a problem by a Pacific islands voter
only when a big man in another network is diverting public resources away from that voter, or if the
diversion is carried out in secret.
Duncan argues that big-man cultural values explain the relative successes and failures in
governance reform in the Pacific. If the problem was lack of capacity or lack of a local champion,
then it could be expected that all public sector reforms would succeed or fail. Instead, reform
programs succeed in public finance ministries such as finance and treasury, but fail in other
ministries such as forestry, fisheries, public works, education, and health.
One possible answer, which fits with a big man culture but not with other explanations, is
that reforms fail in the ministries controlled by big men. The public finance ministries write the
checks, but ministries such as forestry, fisheries, public works, education, and health distribute
resources and award contracts. It is simply not in the interest of Pacific big men for proper oversight
to exist in the ministries that control distribution, as that would hinder their task of distributing
resources to their supporters.
Duncan rightly points out that little can be done to change culture from the outside. To try
to affect cultural norms, aid agencies might focus on empowering domestic groups that can push for
reform. Agencies can also try to strengthen internal government bodies such as the ombudsman and
auditor general, while recognizing that reform of these agencies will receive very little domestic
support and will even invite difficulties.
Aid agencies could also attempt to change culture by shifting the cultural norms and
expectations of leading politicians and public servants. Overseas training of public servants and other
individuals might begin this process. A longer-term strategy would be to improve primary and
secondary education in the PICs and to promote greater openness to international trade. However,
these efforts are not likely to bring about change in the near future. Aid agencies should therefore
attempt to develop institutions in the Pacific that are a better match with Pacific values.
Development of appropriate institutions has for a long time been a theme in the reports of the
international development agencies, but the work required has never been done.
Duncan argues that if we wish to see an efficient public sector in the Pacific, we would have
to keep the big men out. This can only be done if the distribution of resources is carried out at the
political level, so that prospective big men are attracted to politics rather than to the public sector.
This is admittedly an impossible task, as many functions in the public sector are distributive; but
reforms might attempt, as much as possible, to have resource distribution done by elected officials
outside the public sector.
An Overview of the Research on the Political Economy of Reform in the Pacific
21
Further, to the extent possible, distribution of resources inside the public sector should be
separated from the daily administration of the ministries. The awarding of jobs, promotions, and
contracts will always take on a political dimension in a Pacific context. Distribution of resources such
as these should not be left under the direct or indirect control of the minister, as the minister will use
them for his own political gain.
For example, Duncan argues that development banks should never be set up in the Pacific.
The problem is not that development banks are alien to Pacific culture; rather, “development banks
look exactly like a very Pacific concept—the chief’s storehouse or the pile of gifts at a feast. The fact
that no development bank has ever succeeded in the Pacific should not be a surprise when considered
in this light.” Likewise, cash given to politicians to distribute to their constituents, or slush funds
such as the Rural Constituency Development Fund in Solomon Islands or the Electoral
Development Funds in PNG, fit perfectly into the distribution role of big men. Once introduced,
these schemes will prove impossible to undo and will likely only grow in time.
In an interesting twist, Duncan says that the public display of gift giving is a feature of
Pacific political culture that could be used to improve governance. Transparency is a Pacific cultural
value—if not quite the same sort of transparency as might be considered appropriate in a developed
country context. Transparency in a Pacific context requires that the big man openly distribute
resources. If distribution were to be moved out of the public service and into the political domain,
then all distribution should be required to be out in the open. In the Pacific context, this would be
an appropriate action for a politician. In the case of slush funds, it could be required that all funds be
exchanged in public and that all transfers be recorded, but not to insist that the auditor-general track
down funds and look for evidence of corruption.
Another feature of Pacific political culture that might work toward improved governance is
the competition between big men. A better governance system might be to institutionalize the big
man networks at the district level, as the big men are still the legitimate political figures in that arena.
Instead of relying upon public service administrators to deliver funds to a district, local distribution
might be moved into the local political sphere. A more culturally appropriate system would be to
have a local council of elected big men to oversee, together with the local member of parliament, the
delivery of resources from the central government.
In Chapter 8, “Achieving Revenue Reform in the Pacific: Taking Revenue Policy and
Administration Advice from Intent to Reality,” Margaret Cotton analyzes the generally poor record
of revenue policy reform and its administration in Pacific countries to see what explains the successes
and the failures.
In an earlier study of the effectiveness of technical assistance in the reform of revenue policy
and its administration in the PICs, Cotton (2008) identified a relationship between the magnitude
of the reform recommendations and their implementation: the larger the reform was perceived to be
by the country, the less likely it was to be implemented. Conversely, reforms that were perceived as
small were almost certain to be completed. Availability of skills, cost, time frame, taxpayer feedback,
and impact were all found to influence the perception of the size of a reform. Political factors were
also found to influence the implementation of the recommendations. However, Cotton did not
address the question of why the larger reforms were harder to implement.
Chapter 8 picks up this question to determine if there are revenue reform recommendations
made to Pacific Island revenue administrations that are commonly considered difficult to implement.
The study also identifies obstacles leading to the implementation difficulties.
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Reforms of revenue policy and administration have typically promoted a four-pronged
approach to improving fiscal sustainability and operational efficiency and effectiveness: (i) the
introduction of a broad-based, low-rate income tax, with few exemptions and discretions; (ii) the
introduction of a broad-based value-added tax (VAT) with few exemptions and discretions; (iii) a
reduction in reliance on trade tariffs and sales taxes; and (iv) the introduction of comprehensive
revenue administration legislation that standardizes the rights and obligations of the revenue
administration office, taxpayers, importers, and exporters.
Eight categories of reforms were identified as commonly facing difficulty in
implementation. These categories split evenly into reforms of a policy nature and reforms of a
revenue administration nature. Policy reforms causing the most difficulty in implementation were
(i) the introduction of a VAT, (ii) the introduction of revenue administration legislation, and
(iii) tariff rate changes. Administration reforms commonly facing difficulty in implementation were
in the areas of (i) audit and communication strategies, (ii) the adoption of self assessment and postclearance audit principles, and (iii) the adoption of business analysis techniques. Recommendations
addressing the removal of exemptions and associated discretionary decision making faced challenges
in both the policy and administration areas.
The Cotton (2008) study had found that perceptions of the size of reform
recommendations varied considerably between the advisers recommending the reforms and those of
the technical assistance recipients. According to the technical assistance providers, most (97%) of the
reforms were assessed as minor or “transactional” when using conventional definitions of
transactional and transformational change. However, when the same recommendations were rated by
the recipients, the majority of the reforms recommended were considered to be large or
“transformational.” Only 30% of the reforms perceived as large were implemented, while 97% of the
reforms perceived as small were completed and 48% of medium reforms were completed. As Cotton
notes in Chapter 8, this point should not be lost on aid agencies, “which typically engage consultants
with different cultural, academic, and organizational backgrounds from the recipients of the
technical assistance.”
The common constraint to adoption of recommendations relating to the need to reduce or
remove exemptions and limit the number of individuals with discretion to grant exemptions was the
political environment. This constraint was said to be particularly challenging where the government
is unstable and there are few, but very influential, lobbyists in the business community. Countries
that had successfully implemented changes had typically made internal changes first, often
establishing a committee to review applications and create greater transparency. Further, decision
makers were often not well equipped with prepared responses supporting a “no” decision. It was also
noted that reforms to exemption regimes were easier to implement when accompanied by taxpayerfriendly reforms, such as tax rate reductions.
Reasons given for challenges to the recommendation of a VAT included the general
“mystery” surrounding a VAT—more so for the American-influenced Pacific islands than the Angloinfluenced countries. The perceived negative impact of a VAT on consumer prices and the belief that
tax administrations do not have the capacity to administer a VAT were also constraints. Improved
communication, awareness, and education of policy makers and legislators were seen as essential to
addressing their concerns and strengthening their understanding of the benefits, impacts, and
administration issues surrounding a VAT.
Implementation challenges to revenue administration reforms fell into two groups:
challenges faced by countries that were implementing revenue administration policies as part of
An Overview of the Research on the Political Economy of Reform in the Pacific
23
wider tax reform (usually involving implementation of a VAT and an income tax), and those where
the legislation was being implemented in isolation. Where revenue administration reform was part of
a wider reform package, the revenue administration component was seen as a lesser part of the
package. Comprehensive reform packages require significant coordination of all stakeholders and
understanding of many new concepts; consequently, the revenue administration components
received less attention. It was suggested that a more piecemeal approach might have made the
magnitude of the changes less overwhelming and given more focus to revenue administration reform.
The underlying concern about the introduction of administration reforms—such as selfassessment, post-clearance audit, the use of data analysis techniques for risk profiling, and the
introduction of a range of audit techniques to address identified risks—was the perceived level of
compliance in the community. Self-assessment and post-clearance audit principles require an
attitudinal change that accepts that the response to compliance risks needs to be balanced against the
resources available and costs of compliance. Recommendations for improving implementation in this
area relate to communication strategies for improving compliance, the development of public
information material, and developing proactive relationships with the business community. These
recommendations would also help shift attitudes from a strong enforcement focus to a balance of
enforcement and service.
The study’s findings suggest that poor communication and lack of understanding are key
constraints to implementing revenue reforms; that is, the change leaders are not equipped with the
depth of understanding needed to convincingly articulate the “what, how, and why” of the reforms
in a variety of forums after the technical assistance provider has departed. Moreover, it may be easier
to communicate and implement reforms in a more piecemeal approach. Small changes informed by
an overall strategic direction might face fewer constraints at both the political and operational levels.
Political instability has been a feature of many Pacific island societies since independence,
particularly Melanesian societies. The lack of strong political parties and ideologies, resulting in
governments comprised of volatile coalitions, is widely seen as the cause of the instability. It is also a
popular notion that political instability makes it difficult to carry out economic reforms. In Chapter
9, “Island Parties: How Has Political Instability Impacted on Regulatory Quality in the South
Pacific?,” Aaron Batten studies how political instability in Pacific countries has affected the
implementation of economic reforms, specifically reforms aimed at improving the quality of their
regulatory controls. Regulation to ensure effective competition and robust growth within the private
sector and the efficient operation of public utilities is one of the most important roles of government
and has been a component of economic reform programs in the Pacific.
This chapter reports on an empirical examination of the impact of political instability on
the quality of business regulation, both in the PICs and in small island-developing states (SIDS)
more generally. The statistical analysis covers 13 PICs and 17 SIDS and measures changes in
regulatory quality between 1996 and 2008. Attention is given to the possibility that endogeneity
exists between regulatory quality and political instability, as political stability may lead to higher
economic growth and the higher economic growth may make regulatory reform more likely.
The statistical analysis shows that higher levels of political instability and political party
fractionalization are associated with poorer levels of regulatory quality across the region. This effect is
highly robust, occurring in various measures of political instability, a wide range of control variables,
and in different samples of PICs and SIDS. Batten argues that this outcome reflects the clientelist
and rent-seeking behaviors that weak party systems have encouraged and their consequent impact on
the ability, and desire, of PIC governments to battle vested interest groups. “Attempts to remove the
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
rent-seeking opportunities of existing businesses may easily result in a destabilization of the
government as lobbyists seek out means to protect their rents.”
Batten asks, what can be done to strengthen the region’s political systems to encourage a
greater degree of policy coherence and more effectively provide these types of public goods? He sees
the strengthening of political parties as part of a possible solution, but acknowledges that this is not
something that development partners can attempt. Political change must be a domestically led
process. Development agencies have to be cognizant of the fact that their efforts to raise levels of
economic activity are likely to be thwarted by the region’s current political systems. They should also
have realistic expectations about what can be achieved by weak coalition governments. However,
development agencies could play an important role in developing the region’s political capacity to
undertake reforms that strengthen domestic political institutions. Efforts to promote reform may be
most effective during periods of relative political stability, while aid resources may be more effectively
applied elsewhere during periods of instability. In this sense, seeking to adapt the uses of aid, rather
than attempting to alter the prevailing political environment, is likely to be the most prudent donor
response to the challenges highlighted in this study.
East Timor, or Timor-Leste, is a new country facing huge challenges with respect to
establishing the conditions for robust, inclusive economic growth. In Chapter 10, “Timor-Leste:
Change, Stagnation, and Questions of Political Economy,” Rod Nixon traces the history of TimorLeste and describes the challenges that the country faces in achieving this goal. Nixon uses the
Drivers of Change framework described in Chapter 1 to identify a range of opportunities for change
to improve the country’s development prospects and the levers that development agencies could to
use to bring about such change.
The challenges that Nixon sees the country facing are almost endless and include (i) lowfertility soils, erratic rainfall, and difficult topography; (ii) the majority of people living in rural areas
at very low levels of income; (iii) very poor infrastructure, particularly roads; (iv) considerable ethnic
diversity; (v) severe skill shortages; (vi) a high proportion of youth and high unemployment;
(vii) substantial rural–urban migration in search of work; (viii) martial arts traditions associated with
political unrest; (ix) high levels of corruption; and (x) a semi-presidential system that has created two
centers of political power.
Nixon identifies the absence of internal security as the most immediate priority. Previous
attempts to firm up law and order under the United Nations have largely failed and external military
and police forces are required to maintain the existing tenuous order. But with the continuing threat
of civil unrest, efforts to generate private sector growth will fail. The government does not appear to
be serious about reforming the security sector, as it is unwilling to punish high-level offenders who
have already been identified. Nixon does not offer any ‘levers’ for improving the security situation in
the near future but says that the next incident of civil unrest that needs the intervention of external
forces should be used as an opportunity to require serious action on the part of the government.
Corruption is entrenched, and improved transparency and public sector management are
seen as the next areas in line for reform attention. The government is said to be interested in funds
for major infrastructure investment in rural areas, where poor public sector management is a
particular problem. Nixon says that such funds should be made available subject to conditions
leading to improved transparency.
Private sector development and the lack of jobs in rural areas are the third priority, but the
investment risks are high. Therefore, development agencies could offer backing for a political risk
An Overview of the Research on the Political Economy of Reform in the Pacific
25
insurance scheme, subject again to conditions requiring improved government management
practices.
The fourth priority is a more effective agricultural extension service and a broader approach
to agricultural development, to include attention to upland farming, estate crops, and livestock. The
government is said to have a strong interest in accessing overseas work programs to provide relief for
the high youth unemployment. Participation in programs such as Australia’s Pacific Island guest
worker scheme, which could give workers experience in better agricultural production systems, could
also be a lever for upgrading agriculture policy.
The huge government revenues being generated by Timor-Leste’s oil reserves provide
development opportunities, but effective expenditure of these funds is proving a significant
challenge, as it has in so many developing countries. Moreover, the availability of these funds reduces
the leverage that development agencies may be able to apply in order to assist in promoting
development.
5. Patronage Politics and Corruption
Chapter 6 contains claims by former presidents of Micronesian countries that patronage or clientelist
politics is alive and well in the Pacific. In Chapter 8, the point is made that tax administration
reform is particularly challenging because of the difficulty of removing the scope for discriminatory
behavior by politicians and bureaucrats in setting tax rates. In Chapter 11, “How Pervasive is
Clientelist Politics in the Pacific?,” Ron Duncan and Graham Hassall attempt to measure the extent
of clientelism in Pacific countries and compare their clientelist behavior with that of other countries.
Drawing on the economic theory of contracts, Duncan and Hassall define clientelism or
patron–client relationships in politics as existing when the only credible (enforceable) pre-election
promises (contracts) are those made between politicians (patrons) and voters (clients). These may be
the only viable forms of political contracts because of the high costs of enforcing contracts between
political incumbents and voters. The high costs of contract enforceability may arise because of the
cost of organizing voters and the need for repeated face-to-face interaction between the politician and
voters to ensure that the voters vote for the politician and can see that the politician delivered on the
promises made.
From this economic interpretation of patron–client politics, Duncan and Hassall draw out
various hypotheses to be empirically tested. These include behaviors such as (i) an emphasis on
targeted transfers to voter groups rather than the provision of public goods that benefit the wider
community; (ii) little interest by politicians in establishing secure property rights and impartial
contract enforcement (the two pillars of market economies), as doing so undermines the politicians’
ability to create rents and distribute targeted transfers; (iii) little interest in making the bureaucracy
more efficient, as this also undermines the politicians’ ability to deliver rents to their voters; (iv) little
interest in establishing controls over the expenditure of revenues from the exploitation of natural
resources, as again this makes rent seizure and distribution more difficult; and (v) the creation of
monopolistic government business enterprises as a means of creating and distributing monopoly
rents. (Appointments to senior management positions and boards of directors in government
business enterprises provide governments with means of rewarding political supporters or enticing
politicians to join the government.) Because some of these forms of clientelist behavior are not easy
to measure directly, their measurement necessarily involved the choice of less direct indicators.
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
The indicators assembled by Duncan and Hassall suggest that Kiribati, the Federated States
of Micronesia, and Solomon Islands exhibit behavior that is most consistent with the clientelist
model. They also have some of the lowest per capita incomes and poorest economic growth in the
Pacific. Thus the answer to one of the questions may be that clientelist politics leads to slower
economic growth. However, one has to ask whether the causality runs in the other direction, or if
there is some additional factor(s) causing both. It is difficult to think of a convincing reason for poor
economic growth to lead to clientelist behavior. It is more convincing to argue that the communal
nature of these societies results in both clientelism and poor growth.
Still, the compilation of indicators of the various forms that clientelist behavior can take
does appears to add up to a fairly convincing, though circumstantial, conclusion that clientelism is
alive and well in some Pacific island societies. Therefore, the possibility for this kind of behavior has
to be taken into account by development agencies in assessing the risks to the potential benefits from
their assistance.
Corruption is believed to be quite widespread in the Pacific. It is also believed to be a
deterrent to economic growth and to the realization of the full benefits from development assistance.
One area in which corruption is believed to be having a significantly detrimental impact is in the
logging of forests—particularly in PNG and Solomon Islands. In Chapter 12, “The Political
Economy of Logging in Solomon Islands,” Matthew Allen explores the political economy of the
logging industry in Solomon Islands and looks for the reasons why the industry is so fraught with
corruption involving foreign logging companies.
Corruption in the forest industry has taken the form of bribes to government officials and
politicians and direct involvement of politicians in the industry, resulting in transfer pricing, illegal
exemptions from export duties, and avoidance of export duties through undervaluation of log exports
and underreporting of log volumes. Consistent with the clientelism model of Duncan and Hassall in
Chapter 11, these corrupt practices have been enabled through lack of clarity about property rights
over forest resources as well as weak monitoring and enforcement through under-resourcing of the
responsible government agencies.
The close association between the logging industry (consisting mainly of landowners and
foreign logging companies) and politicians has been responsible for much of the political instability
that has occurred in Solomon Islands over the past 2 decades. It has also been responsible for the
unsustainable level of logging of Solomon Islands’ forests, to the point where logging is expected to
decline sharply in the near future.
Allen argues that while the corruption can be seen in part as economically rational, there is
more to it than this. He draws upon literature on social embeddedness and political culture to
develop a framework that emphasizes the importance of social and cultural influences on the
behavior of elected representatives, government officials, and village big men in Solomon Islands.
Similar to Roderick Duncan in Chapter 7, Allen stresses that, like all Melanesians, Solomon
Islanders are enmeshed in networks of obligation and reciprocity. Therefore, the cultural
expectations of their kinsmen compel politicians, government officials, and village big men to access
and distribute resources, with the logging industry affording significant opportunity for such
patronage.
Allen is pessimistic about the prospects for improved behavior, given the extremely slow rate
at which culture changes. He sees grassroots demand for improved governance as providing the best
chance for desirable change and urges research on ways in which such grassroots change can be
stimulated.
An Overview of the Research on the Political Economy of Reform in the Pacific
27
The politicians’ slush funds that exist in PNG and Solomon Islands—and to a much lesser
extent in Vanuatu—are considered by many to be a form of political corruption. Jon Fraenkel in
Chapter 13, “The Atrophied State: A Supply-side Perspective on Politician ‘Slush Funds’ in Western
Melanesia,” takes a close look at the allocation of these funds. In particular, he examines the claim
that the funds are a manifestation of patron–client, or clientelist, politics. He concludes that they are
more likely a function of attempts to hold governing coalitions together, with such attempts being
assisted by the availability of increased government revenues coming from natural resource revenues
or donor aid.
Fraenkel has carefully collected data on allocations of the Rural Constituency Development
Fund in Solomon Islands, the Members of Parliament Allocation in Vanuatu, and the District
Support Grants (more recently, the District Services Improvement Programme) in PNG. A
comparison of the data shows that in Vanuatu the politically allocated expenditures (PAEs) are much
smaller that in the other two Melanesian states, both in terms of monetary amounts and as a share of
national government expenditure (in 2009, PAEs totaled 0.9% of government expenditure in
Vanuatu, 5.5% in PNG, and 6.2% in Solomon Islands). Also, the amounts allocated to politicians
fluctuate significantly over time, especially in the two larger states.
Fraenkel relates the fluctuations in the amounts allocated to individual politicians to the
timing of elections and fluctuations in windfall resource revenues and donor funds to test whether
the PAEs are an outcome of patron–client politics or due to governments using them to hold
fractious coalitions together. He argues that the latter is more likely the case (increases in PAEs tend
to occur after elections rather than before) and that such use has been facilitated by increases in
windfall resource funds and aid. That Vanuatu has had more volatile governments but made much
less use of PAEs is attributed to the fact that it has received little in the way of windfall resource
revenues.
Whether PAEs should be seen as generating stagnation or deterioration in government
service delivery (because the funds are being used for direct payments to politicians rather than being
a response to weakening bureaucracies and declining public services) cannot be determined due to
the absence of data on PAE disbursements. However, Fraenkel argues that even if donors choose, for
pragmatic reasons, not to place conditions on loans that require the reduction of the large PAEs in
PNG and Solomon Islands, they should at least avoid endorsing the kinds of analysis that depict
such schemes as potentially positive instruments for improving the delivery of services.
Fraenkel sees PAEs as one part of a “pervasive personalization of the management of state
finances in Western Melanesia” that is undermining the building of effective states. In particular,
schemes in which volatile government surpluses, whether arising from aid or natural resource
industries, are recycled through politicians should be avoided.
6. Political Economy and Aid
It has been argued that aid can have impacts similar to that of natural resource windfalls, such as the
potential loss of competitiveness of industries through exchange rate effects or raising non-traded,
particularly labor, costs (“Dutch disease”), or poor use of aid funds because they reduce pressure on
governments to use revenues wisely and to perform well because the revenues are not raised from
taxes (resource curse). Further, aid can be fungible; therefore, governments can fund projects that do
not have highest priority, or the aid can be corruptly appropriated by politicians or bureaucrats. The
possibility of adverse impacts from aid is of particular concern in the Pacific, as several of the PICs
receive some of the highest levels of per capita aid in the world.
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Chapter 14 by Jonathan Gouy, “Aid, ‘Dutch Disease,’ and the Pacific,” tests the impact of
foreign aid flows on Pacific government behavior, in particular on the raising of tax revenue. This is
only one of the possible adverse impacts of aid. However, it is the only one of the possible impacts
mentioned above for which the necessary data to undertake econometric analysis is available. Gouy
uses cross-country regression analysis to explain tax revenue–GDP ratios for samples covering many
different country groupings. The hypothesis that the presence of aid is negatively correlated with
revenues during 1990–2007 is rejected for the samples from all countries, middle-income countries,
East Asia and Pacific countries, and island states, while no reliable relationship is found for the
impact of aid on revenues in the PICs, the low-income countries, and sub-Saharan African groups.
Gouy notes that the fact that revenue has an unclear relationship with aid in the PICs leaves
open several possibilities. One is that aid and revenue are partially endogenous to each other.
Another is that the cause and effect primarily goes in the other direction, such that a change in a
country’s circumstances (such as a natural disaster or rapid terms of trade deterioration) impacts
revenues, which leads to donors altering aid levels. This outcome is plausible in very high-aid
countries. A third possibility is that the volatile year-to-year macroeconomic shifts that the small,
open, and relatively undiversified PIC economies experience could overwhelm any revenue effects
that arise from changes in aid.
However, given the likely increases in aid flowing to the Pacific, in particular because of the
large increase in future Australian aid, Gouy lists a number of areas where development partners
should take care: (i) increase aid flows carefully to avoid swamping domestic markets and
bureaucracies with a mix of Dutch disease and governance impacts; (ii) recognize that imported
capital goods that expand the capital stock have a greater chance of catalyzing private investment
than government consumption, which generally crowds out private investment; (iii) slow or reduce
the proliferation of aid activities by increasing sector and country specialization and rationalizing
activities among donors; and (iv) avoid drawing recipient governments into policy engagements that
entail expenditure commitments with uncertain returns.
In Chapter 15, “The Political Economy of Sugar Rents in Fiji,” Satish Chand analyzes a
form of aid that clearly appears to have fostered rent seeking and political instability in recipient
countries. This study relates to the aid provided by the European Union (EU)countries to former
colonies and territories through the Sugar Protocol with the African, Caribbean, and Pacific
countries. The agreement essentially provided aid in the form of preferential prices for sugar exports
from these countries to the EU. Chand estimates that for the 10 years to 2001, the sugar aid or rents
received by Fiji amounted to nearly half the total value of its sugar exports—equal to approximately
5% of gross domestic product.
The key findings of the chapter are that the rents provided through the preferential prices
have fueled damaging political competition in Fiji; that competition over the rents has led to the
dissipation of the rents; and that the externalities of this competition include deleterious impacts on
interethnic relations, national politics, and policy making.
The competition over the sugar rents has been basically between the indigenous Fijian
landowners and the tenant farmers, who are predominantly Indo–Fijian descendants of indentured
Indian labor brought to the country by the sugar miller Colonial Sugar Refinery Ltd. However,
additional stakeholders have come into the picture, including the Native Land Trust Board (NLTB),
which was established in 1940 and given a monopoly over the issuing of agricultural leases; the
government, which acquired the sugar mills at Fiji’s independence in 1970; the unions representing
the smallholder farmers; and the mill workers and their unions—all significant political players.
An Overview of the Research on the Political Economy of Reform in the Pacific
29
Chand describes the political economy of the contest over the sugar rents in the following
terms. The rent-seeking NLTB monopoly has an incentive to appropriate all of the rents, given the
competitive nature of its franchisees. As a result, NLTB has been active in national politics, serving as
a focal point for discussion of issues of interest to landowners and the indigenous population. The
close links NLTB has had with the Great Council of Chiefs has given them political clout parallel to
that of Parliament.
The Growers’ Union, representing the tenants, has a symmetrical incentive to convince
tenants that security of access to land, particularly conditions of leases and lease renewals, can be
achieved via the political process. That is, the Growers’ Union will lose its legitimacy should lease
renewals become independent of the political process. Because it is funded via levies, its existence
depends on continuing political support from farmers. Such support is also critical for winning
communal Indo–Fijian seats in national elections within the sugarcane growing districts.
The political parties that draw support from the two sides of the ethnically divided
electorate have an incentive to preserve the status quo. Consequently, the impasse over reform of the
agricultural land-leasing system—which has inhibited productivity growth in the sugar industry and
investment more generally—attracts considerable rhetoric but little action from the leaders of the
two major political parties. Ethnic polarization increases during elections, when grievances regarding
the division of the proceeds from sugar exports are debated by aspiring politicians. The nurturing of
this divide has adverse ramifications for race relations and for policy making as a whole.
It is argued that the sugar rents have been dissipated in various ways. First, the rent
component of incomes from profitable farms has been capitalized into their prices. Second, because
of the artificially increased sugarcane prices, fields have been expanded into marginal land and
remote areas, so rents have been dissipated through rising production and transport costs. Third,
milling inefficiency has risen with the price of sugar. Fourth, landowners have claimed some of the
rents, as land values within the sugarcane growing districts have risen with the expansion of the area
under sugarcane cultivation. Finally, unionized labor has claimed some of the rents through wage
increases that exceed productivity growth.
The EU’s preferential prices are being phased out due to pressure from the World Trade
Organization. Chand argues that the erosion of the preferential prices will diminish the incentives for
rent seeking and thus has the potential to improve intercommunal relations, national politics, and
policy making in general. In fact, this process may have already begun, with the recent dissolution of
several of the sugar industry organizations.
7. Conclusions
These studies have confirmed or added to the lessons garnered from the political economy research
undertaken over the past almost 20 years, which indicate the importance of
„
political and senior civil service commitment (leadership);
„
organizational strategic management capability within the public sector, such that it can
respond to events as the reform process unfolds;
„
a well-constructed communication strategy designed to inform the public and develop and
sustain its support (“ownership”) of the reform; and
„
appropriate and coherent external technical advice (and pressure).
30
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
The experience of successful reforms in the Pacific strongly supports these lessons. For
example, they have demonstrated the importance of reform champions in both the political and
bureaucratic arenas. Moreover, stability in this leadership during the lengthy reform processes was
critical, as was the leaders’ influence in widening support among the various stakeholders. The
reform process also benefited from having a support team capable of responding to events over the
life of the process; in-depth studies to support the reform leadership; and comprehensive
communications strategies to generate public understanding of the reforms, allow concerns to be
expressed, develop ownership of the reforms, and mobilize public action. National summits, or
retreats, involving all stakeholders have also featured prominently in public consultations in the
Pacific.
Additional reform lessons from the studies are as follows:
„
The reform champion need not necessarily be an individual—it may be an organization, as
in the PNG telecommunication reform.
„
An international treaty with “teeth” can be a useful mechanism for initiating and sustaining
(locking in) reform.
„
Local actors will perceive the changes involved in reforms as much larger than do the
development agencies or consultants providing technical assistance; therefore, consideration
must be given to local perceptions of reforms, and it may be helpful to take a piecemeal
approach.
„
The demonstration of widespread consumer benefits from earlier reforms or reforms in
other countries can stimulate current reform efforts; this point ties in with the importance
of generating in-depth studies to demonstrate the benefits of the reform.
„
It may be important to ensure that the reforms are in harmony with cultural practices.
The studies also have some general lessons for development agencies. Corruption and
clientelist politics exist in the Pacific and can present substantial obstacles to improved economic
growth and development. If those holding power within a country will lose from a reform, it will be
very difficult to implement the reform unless the incentives affecting their behavior are changed. The
cultural norms and values of Pacific countries appear to play a large role in these perceived problems.
Agencies must realize that these cultural values will be resistant to change. Although it may be
possible to bring about some change in culture, expectations about the extent of such change should
be realistic. It may also be possible to adapt institutions and policies to have a better fit with the
existing culture.
The studies offer some specific suggestions as well. Because an understanding of the political
economy of undertaking reforms in developing countries is clearly desirable, it is equally desirable
that agencies employ, directly or indirectly, specialists with expertise in this area. Development
agency staff should have a reasonable understanding of the political economy of economic reform,
both in developing countries in general and in the particular economies with which they are engaged.
It is also clear that an appreciation of the political economy of reform should be an integral part of
the design of projects involving any sizable (as perceived by locals) reform effort.
An Overview of the Research on the Political Economy of Reform in the Pacific
31
Reference
Cotton, M.E. 2008. Change Content and Aid Effectiveness: How the Size of Change Content
Affects Implementation of Technical Assistance Recommendations in Developing Pacific Island
Countries. Unpublished paper submitted in partial completion of the degree of Master in
Management, Massey University.
94 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
3 A Political Economy
Analysis of the Customary
Land Tenure Reforms
in Papua New Guinea
by Charles Yala1
ABSTRACT
The land reform program initiated in 2005 has successfully proceeded to implementation. A
significant achievement is the passage in March 2009 of two pieces of legislation aimed at mobilizing
land held under customary tenure for development. Passage of this legislation is significant because
past attempts at land reform have failed. The successful outcome provides useful lessons about the
political economy of Papua New Guinea, how to undertake sensitive reforms in other sectors of the
economy, and how external agencies can engage with reform programs.
1. Introduction
The passing of two pieces of legislation aimed at mobilizing land held under customary tenure for
development by the Papua New Guinea (PNG) Parliament on 19 March 2009 was a significant
milestone in PNG’s endeavors to undertake fundamental microeconomic reforms aimed at achieving
broad-based economic growth and development. These laws underpin fundamental reforms to the
customary land tenure system. Their passing also marks a significant achievement for the broader
land reform program, which was initiated in 2005.
1
Yala provided the academic leadership throughout the PNG Land Reform Program. Ron Duncan, Satish Chand, Thomas
Webster, Esekia Warvi, and Kathryn Apelis, who provided useful comments on an earlier draft, are gratefully acknowledged.
The views expressed in this paper are those of the author.
34
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
The Somare government (in the previous Parliament from 2002 to 2007), through the
lands and physical planning minister, initiated the land reform program in 2005. The government
saw this as a fundamental reform initiative aimed at achieving the 5% annual growth target set in its
Medium Term Development Strategy 2005–2010 (Department of National Planning and
Monitoring [DPNM] 2005). At the same time, both the minister and the government were mindful
of the fact that land reform remains a sensitive and difficult policy issue in many parts of the
developing world, including PNG. Past land reform initiatives in PNG largely failed. Protests led by
students, nongovernment organizations (NGOs), and trade unions opposing customary land tenure
reform resulted in four deaths in 2002 and the destruction of property worth millions of kina in
1995 and 2002. 2 The political implications were extreme, as the incumbent Morauta government
was decimated in the 2002 national elections.
Customary land tenure reform was therefore a politically sensitive and unpopular policy
matter for individual politicians, political parties, and incumbent governments. Politicians have been
very cautious about pursuing policies that advocate customary land tenure reform in a society where
customary land tenure is deeply rooted in the cultural, social, political, and economic fabric. At the
same time, opponents of customary land tenure reform have advanced the argument that customary
land supports more than 85% of the national population, which is predominantly rural, and that any
reforms to customary land tenure would result in a land grab by educated, wealthy, and wellconnected citizens and foreigners. Once land was registered, people could lose their land very easily
as it could be sold and traded, causing upheavals in the social life of tribal communities. People
would be pushed into extreme poverty as their source of security in providing food, water, and
shelter would be lost forever.
In the face of this opposition, it became extremely difficult to pursue policies aimed at
reforming the customary land tenure system. However, the need for broad-based economic growth
motivated the government and the minister to initiate a PNG-championed land reform initiative in
2005, in which national institutions and experts played a leading role.
Since 2005, the broader land reform process has undergone three distinct phases:
conception, formulation, and implementation. The conception phase saw the staging of a National
Land Summit in 2005, aimed at seeking a mandate from the people of PNG to undertake land
reform. The formulation phase saw the establishment of the National Land Development Taskforce
(NLDT) in 2006, with three expert committees formed to implement the recommendations from
the summit. The government adopted the recommendations in 2006 and the National Land
Development Program (NLDP) was launched in 2007 to begin the implementation phase.
The Prime Minister launched the NLDP in February 2007. Given that 2007 was an
election year, the willingness of the incumbent Prime Minister, the lands and physical planning
minister, and the government to launch the program was a testament to the success of the process
and the type of land reform formulated. This progress was significant, given the negative experiences
from 2002, which was also an election year.
The launch of the NLDP made it official government policy to implement the findings,
recommendations, and implementation framework formulated by NLDT. The findings and
recommendations focused on four areas: improving the system of land administration, improving the
system of land dispute settlement; developing a framework for mobilizing land held under customary
tenure for development; and developing institutions for a viable land and properties market. Land
reform has become part of the mainstream public policy debate in PNG. Several political parties and
2
K1 = $0.3729 on 14 September 2009.
A Political Economy Analysis of the Customary Land Tenure Reforms in Papua New Guinea
35
candidates that contested the 2007 national election advocated land reform policies in their party
and individual campaign manifestos.
On 19 March 2009, the PNG parliament unanimously passed two laws aimed at mobilizing
land held under customary tenure for development. The principles underlying this legislation were
conceived at the National Land Summit and formulated by NLDT. The discussions at the summit
provided the following guiding principles: that, under any form of registration, the customary
ownership of the land was never to be lost but remain with the traditional landowners; and that any
system of titling was as good as a state title. The first principle was demanded by PNG customary
landowners and the latter by financial institutions.
The successful passage of the two laws marks a significant achievement in the broader land
reform program. This success provides useful lessons in understanding the political economy of
PNG, how to undertake sensitive reforms in the other sectors of the economy, and how external
agencies can engage with reforms.
This chapter is organized as follows. Section 2 describes the process behind the broader land
reform program and the key features. Section 3 describes the conception, formulation, and
implementation of the customary land tenure reform component. Section 4 analyzes the main factors
behind the successful passage of the two laws. Section 5 uses lessons drawn from the preceding
analysis to describe external agency engagement in PNG.
2. The Broader Land Reform Program
The passage of the two laws has initiated successful reforms to customary land tenure in PNG. This
is an important achievement for the broader land reform process, which began in 2005. Both the
broader reform process and the customary land tenure reform initiatives have been through their
own systematically structured and executed processes. This section describes the process and key
features of the broader land reform program.
Process for the Broader Land Reform Program
The broader land reform program has been through three distinct phases: conception, formulation,
and implementation.
Conception—National Land Summit (2005)
The conception phase of the land reform program began with the staging of the National Land
Summit (NLS) at the University of Technology (UNITECH) in Lae, in 2005. To prepare for the
summit, the government invited the state-owned National Research Institute (NRI) to lead a team
comprised of three line departments (Departments of Lands and Physical Planning, National
Planning and Monitoring, and Justice and Attorney General), two universities (University of Papua
New Guinea and UNITECH), and two research institutes (NRI and the Institute of National
Affairs). This group formed the National Land Summit Coordinating Committee (NLSCC).
NLSCC met regularly and deliberated on the theme, program, papers, presenters, and participants.
The lands and physical planning minister was provided regular updates throughout. Details of the
summit were published in the media.
The staging of the summit was important for the government in seeking a mandate from
the people of PNG to pursue the land reform agenda and seek direction on the type of land reform
required. It provided a process to hear each other’s views, recognize barriers, and identify
opportunities for developing further. There was no predetermined agenda except to discuss the
36
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
challenges and opportunities that land reform presented and to gain the community’s confidence
that the government had no ulterior agenda. The government and NLSCC were committed to a
process-driven outcome. Therefore, they were prepared to allow the outcome of the summit to
determine the direction of the land reform initiative. Communicating this to the stakeholders was an
important aspect of the public relations strategy leading up to the summit.
The program was structured to demonstrate PNG political and technical leadership over the
process. Political leadership was demonstrated through presentations made by the deputy prime
minister (keynote address), lands and physical planning minister (setting the agenda for land reform),
and the treasurer (closing speech). Constitutional and Law Reform Commission Chairperson Dr.
Alan Marat, Lands and Physical Planning Minister Dr. Puka Temu, and Justice Minister and
Attorney General Bire Kimisopa participated throughout the summit.3
Following the presentations by the deputy prime minister and the lands and physical
planning minister were two conceptual papers, presented by PNG academics, aimed at providing the
framework for subsequent papers and discussions. The first focused on economic arguments,
especially the impending poverty implications of not engaging in a quality land reform program that
ensured security of tenure aimed at improving agricultural productivity to feed the growing
population. Without land reform, increasing poverty was seen as inevitable (Yala, Chand, and
Duncan 2010). The second paper focused on the irreversible changes already occurring in customary
land tenure, which have significant social, political, and economic implications. These changes are
driven by the rapid social and economic changes occurring in the country (Kalinoe and Kanawi
2010). 4
The rest of the presentations were by the public sector, the private sector, NGOs, students,
a landowner, and banking and finance sector representatives. These presentations focused on the
problems, issues, strategies, and options from practitioners’ viewpoints. 5
Only two external speakers were formally invited to speak at the summit. One was an
Australian academic of aboriginal background who discussed the land reform debate involving
indigenous Australians (Dodson and McCarthy 2010). 6 This was a crucial paper. It helped Papua
New Guineans to understand that even Australia, with its economic size, large number of
universities, and considerable technical and intellectual capacity, continues to struggle with this issue.
Given the lead role that Australia plays in PNG through its aid arrangements and the extensive
interest in the PNG customary land tenure debate by academics and consultants in Australia (see
section below), this presentation strengthened PNG’s resolve to pursue its own reform initiative, to
be driven by PNG institutions and experts. The message was clear: if Australian experts and the
Australian government continue to struggle to resolve customary land tenure issues within Australia,
then Papua New Guineans had to be skeptical of proposals from Australian experts. The PNG
government had already decided that while Australia could provide financial support, the design of a
framework for land reform, including reforms to customary land tenure, had to be owned and
developed by PNG. The paper endorsed this approach.
The second international speaker was an academic, Professor Ron Crocombe, with longstanding knowledge of previous failed attempts at land reform within PNG and across the Pacific
3
4
5
6
Alan Marat has a PhD in law. Puka Temu is a medical doctor by training and was knighted in 2009.
While both papers were coauthored, Yala and Kalinoe were the respective presenters.
Selected papers from the summit proceedings are contained in Yala (2010). The abstracts of the papers presented at the summit
are contained in the NLSCC report (2006) to government on the NLS, later reproduced as Special Publication # 39 by NRI.
Professor Mick Dodson presented the paper. Dodson was the Australian of the Year for 2009.
A Political Economy Analysis of the Customary Land Tenure Reforms in Papua New Guinea
37
islands region. He provided cautionary advice on how PNG could move ahead and what pitfalls to
avoid (Crocombe 2010).
The summit was well attended, with ample opportunities for views and perspectives to be
expressed by a wide cross section of the community. A total of 67 recommendations were submitted.
Subsequent review of these recommendations revealed four thematic issues. These were (i) improving
the system of land administration; (ii) improving the system of land dispute settlement;
(iii) designing a framework for developing land held under customary tenure; and (iv) improving the
security of tenure so that transactions involving all types of land (land owned by the state, freehold
land, and land held under customary tenure) are bankable. 7 The last issue emerged as the overriding
theme. Capturing all these issues was the question, how can we access land for development? This
question provided the overall framework for subsequent analysis and discussion.
NLSCC prepared a report on the summit, distilling the issues and options and developing a
framework within which the government could implement the recommendations. People were
greatly concerned about the appalling state of land administration (which is the management of state
land) and the system of land dispute settlement. The main message regarding customary land
registration was that before this was pursued, the government had to improve the system of land
administration and land dispute settlement. The proposed implementation framework consisted of a
task force with three expert committees covering the thematic areas of land administration, land
dispute settlement, and customary land development, reporting to the Economic Ministerial
Committee (EMC), a committee of the National Executive Council (NEC). The three committees
were to undertake in-depth analysis of the issues and make recommendations.
NLSCC first presented the draft report to the lands and physical planning minister and
then to EMC. Having received their endorsement, NLSCC submitted the final report to the
government in October 2005. The government adopted the summit report and its proposals,
establishing the National Land Development Taskforce (NLDT) and the three committees as
recommended. The Prime Minister launched the task force and the report from the summit (which
NRI had produced as Special Discussion Paper #39) at the Parliament conference room in front of
invited guests and the media.
Formulation—National Land Development Taskforce (2006)
NLDT began work in February 2006. The core team from NLSCC was retained as NLDT. Three
expert committees, headed by NLDT members, were established to undertake detailed analysis of
recommendations within the three thematic areas that emerged from the NLS. Experts from the
private sector with practical experience in dealing with land (valuation and land administration),
legal firms, financial institutions, academics, and representatives from the NGO coalition were
invited to be part of these expert committees.
The three committees met regularly. Chairpersons of each committee reported to NLDT
during its monthly meetings. The NLDT secretariat, located at NRI, in turn prepared a monthly
brief for the minister. The minister provided briefs to his colleague ministers known to have
sympathetic views toward land reform, and to EMC. This process continued until June 2006 when
the three committees completed their work.
7
See NLSCC (2006) for the full list of recommendations.
38
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
In July 2006, a workshop was organized for NLDT and members of the three committees
to deliberate on the findings and recommendations from the three committees, which by this time
were packaged into one report by NLDT secretariat. At this workshop, the chairpersons presented
their committee’s findings and recommendations. The verified set of findings and recommendations
were endorsed by NLDT, also in July 2006. NLDT then progressed to the next crucial phase of
selling the findings and recommendations to the wide group of stakeholders through a wellstructured and executed consultation process.
At the end of the stakeholder consultations, NLDT and members of the three committees
gathered at a workshop in September 2006 to review the comments, questions, and suggestions
gathered from the public consultation process. The lands and physical planning minister attended
this workshop and encouraged NLDT to prepare an NEC submission for presentation to the
cabinet. The outcome of this workshop constituted the final findings and recommendations from
NLDT to government. 8 NLDT submitted the final report to the government through the minister
in October 2006. Also contained in the report was a proposal defining the implementation structure
under the National Land Development Program (NLDP).
The final report contained 54 recommendations. The overwhelming majority of the
recommendations (47) were concerned with improving the system of land administration, six
recommendations outlined the process for designing a framework for the development of land held
under customary tenure, and a single recommendation related to land dispute settlement.
Implementation—National Land Development Program (2007 Onward)
The NLDP has four thematic components: (i) improving land administration, (ii) improving land
dispute settlement, (iii) designing a framework for developing land held under customary tenure, and
(iv) designing the institutional frameworks to support the development of a viable land and
properties market. These four thematic issues had their origins in the NLS and NLDT.
The governance structure of the NLDP comprised (i) a ministerial committee (EMC) to
provide political leadership, through which the NLDP reports to NEC; (ii) a management
committee made up of department heads of the key implementing agencies, to provide technical and
administrative leadership and direction; (iii) an outsourced program management unit, to provide
technical guidance and oversee implementation at the project and activity levels across the different
implementing agencies (private, quasi-private, and public sector); and (iv) an independent National
Land Development Advisory Group (NLDAG), formed of representatives from academic
institutions, the private sector, and the NGO coalition, to provide independent oversight of the land
reform implementation phase.
The Department of Lands and Physical Planning (DLPP) was assigned to lead the
implementation of the recommendations aimed at improving the land administration system. The
Department of Justice and Attorney General was tasked with implementing the recommendation to
establish a single land court through Magisterial Services. The Constitutional and Law Reform
Commission (CLRC) was entrusted to provide leadership in implementing the recommendation for
developing land held under customary tenure. The fourth thematic issue is an overarching theme for
all implementing agencies to work toward. However, the Independent Consumer and Competition
Commission, as the promoter of competition in PNG, is expected to play a lead role by establishing
the ground rules that will enable the land program to achieve its aim of developing a viable land and
properties market in PNG.
8
See NLDT (2006) for full details.
A Political Economy Analysis of the Customary Land Tenure Reforms in Papua New Guinea
39
NLDT estimated that a minimum of 100 million kina (K) would be needed over a 10–20
year period to fully implement the NLDP. A consultancy team was assembled in 2007, with funding
support provided by the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), to design a
concept design document to firm up the implementation framework, identify activities, and
objectively cost the land program (NLDP 2007). The concept design document identified and
estimated costs of activities for the first 5 years at K83 million.
Since then, the idea of implementing the land program within a 5-year framework was
adopted. This process is useful for systematically phasing the implementation process, prioritizing
activities, and synchronizing the implementation of the land program with the annual budgetary
cycle. With respect to the latter, PNG has two annual budgets: recurrent and development. The
recurrent budget is administered by the Department of Treasury while the development budget,
which funds projects of longer than 1 year, is administered by DNPM. Given the program nature of
the NLDP, the concept design document was adapted to meet the requirements of the development
budget cycle. Moreover, the main thrust is to get the important things done first so that subsequent
cycles build on the success of the preceding cycle.
Implementation has been slower than expected, as illustrated by the following:
„
The NLDP has not been implemented as a coherent package.
„
As yet the program management unit has not been established to support the Program
Management Committee.
„
The NLDP was not incorporated into the 2008 or 2009 development budgets.
„
The first concept design document, which was expected to cover the period 2008–2012, has
not been completed. A final version is currently being prepared.
„
There was considerable delay in establishing the management committee. However, the
committee began meeting in 2009, chaired by the secretary for DLPP. An active technical
committee has since been meeting regularly to provide direction to the management
committee.
„
The NLDP is currently working through the responsible ministers.
„
Although NLDAG has been established, it has met only once.
However, progress has been made in some important areas, largely because influential
individuals who support the land reform initiative are taking ownership of components that fall
within their administrative and legal jurisdictions. The following examples demonstrate this:
„
DLPP has undertaken restructuring to accommodate the administration of land currently
held under customary tenure with the establishment of a new Division of Customary Land
Management (previously a section) to be headed by a deputy secretary, upgrading the status
of customary land management within the department.
„
The Office of Urbanisation has identified pilot project areas in different parts of the country
to accommodate urban expansion of cities and towns on land currently held under
customary tenure using the new laws.
„
The Law School of the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) is preparing to offer a
graduate diploma in land tenure.
„
NRI is developing a land research framework to coordinate land research as part of the
NLDP.
„
DNPM is including the NLDP in its long-term development strategic plan. The strategy is
expected to be implemented over the 2010–2030 period.
40
„
„
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Magisterial Services has adopted the recommendation to establish a single land court. A
report and draft legislation has been completed and Magisterial Services is currently
undertaking a nationwide consultation.
Perhaps the most important achievement for the NLDP is the passing of the two pieces of
legislation dealing with customary land tenure reforms on 19 March 2009 by the PNG
Parliament. CLRC pursued and achieved this outcome.
The achievements highlighted above are significant. This experience demonstrates the need
to be pragmatic. Core components could be implemented where support for reform exists.
Individuals in positions of influence who support the land reform agenda are prepared to implement
components that fall within their administrative and legal jurisdictions. The lesson from this
experience is the need to identify individual champions within the various implementing agencies
and provide them with the necessary support, whether financial or technical, to help implement
components of the land reform program that fall under their jurisdiction. This strategy also has the
potential to institutionalize the implementation of the land reform program.
Key Sustaining Factors
Three factors that sustained the land reform initiative and ensured that it progressed from
conception through to implementation are discussed in this section.
Analysis of information and dissemination
There has been an extensive academic and policy debate over land reform in PNG, largely driven by
foreign academics and donor agencies. This debate has largely been targeted toward customary land
tenure reforms. Unfortunately, the discussion failed to translate into policy, law, and implementation
(Larmour 1994). Two years before the current land reform initiative was conceived in 2005,
Larmour (2003) concluded that land reform remained a failed policy in PNG.
This debate was still active, both in PNG and Australia, as the new initiative was being
conceived. The Pacific Economic Bulletin, as of the early 2000s, became an academic forum for this
discussion. The contending arguments were, on one side, the need for abolition of customary land
tenure (that is, to privatize) for development to take place and, on the other, the need for
maintenance of customary land tenure. 9 An edited collection published by the Australia Institute
(Fingleton 2005) pursued the case in defense of customary land tenure while Lea (2009) continues to
argue in favor of individual land rights or interests in land. 10 An edited collection by Sullivan (2002)
documents some PNG contributions to this academic discussion. However, overall, there has been
limited PNG engagement in this debate at the academic level.
At the policy level, there has been some interest in both Australia and PNG. AusAID (2006)
identified land reform as an important area of intervention in its Pacific 2020 report. This led to the
Pacific Land Program, which aims to support governments from the Pacific islands (which includes
PNG) and Timor-Leste, in their pursuit of land reforms. A report and a series of case studies have
9
10
David Lea, Tim Curtin, and Helen Hughes advocated privatization of customary land while Jim Fingleton argued for the
maintenance of customary land tenure. The series of articles can be accessed online: http://peb.anu.edu.au/peb/search_
issues.php (Accessed online 1 September 2009)
Selected papers from Lea’s earlier publications can be found in Lea (2008).
A Political Economy Analysis of the Customary Land Tenure Reforms in Papua New Guinea
41
since been published by the Pacific Land Program (AusAID 2008). 11 Within PNG, DLPP had
initiated a public consultation process, promoting the idea of voluntary customary land registration
(Kemas 2010).
This debate had a polarizing effect on the land reform initiative in PNG. If poorly
managed, the debate had the capacity to undermine the new land reform initiative. In recognition of
this, the technical team behind the PNG land reform initiative engaged in an extensive survey of the
literature covering theoretical, policy, and empirical analyses. The team settled on the literature on
the economics of land titling to draw on the instruments useful for the design of a framework that
ensured security of tenure for all land with formal titles. This was consistent with the aim of the
PNG land reform initiative: mobilize land for development.
Feder et al. (1988) provided the initial conceptual framework depicting the economics of
land titling. The framework shows land titling impacting on productivity through two different but
complementary channels: one is through the borrower’s side and the other through the lender’s side.
The borrower’s (investment/demand) link shows title security increasing demand for investment and
variable inputs. The supply side (credit) link complements this with increased supply of long-term
investment and short-term credit. The positive impact on productivity (higher output per hectare)
subsequently translates to higher incomes and land prices.
A review of empirical research that applied this framework for over a decade (Feder and
Nisho 1998) showed that policy initiatives in Southeast Asia, and to some extent in Latin America,
were in agreement with the theoretical predictions. However, the results from Africa were mixed.
While the central argument presented by de Soto (2000) that the issuance of a land title breathes life
into “dead” capital supported the arguments for land titling initiatives, it was clear that land titles per
se were not sufficient. Complementing the titling process was the need to have an efficiently
functioning system of land administration and ensuring that the land titles were bankable. The
World Bank’s (Deininger 2003) review of the empirical and policy literature reported regional trends
similar to those reported by Feder and Nisho (1998) and stated that the bank was abandoning its
original land policy (World Bank 1975), which emphasized individual land titling in favor of
frameworks that provided security of tenure. Also, the report highlighted the significance of social
legitimacy in the type of land reform a country pursued. On an issue with direct relevance to PNG,
Fitzpatrick (2005) applied the World Bank (Deininger 2003) approach to a dozen countries and
concluded that there was no “best practice” model for customary land tenure reform. Context
mattered; each country should design a land tenure regime that suited its particular circumstances.
The key message from the literature review undertaken by the PNG team was that PNG
had to design (conceive, formulate, and implement) a land reform program that reflected the PNG
context and its level of development, and gain the endorsement of the wider stakeholders. Ensuring
security of tenure had to be the overall aim. This issue was seen as crucial for the development of a
viable land and properties market.
To draw lessons from the application of existing legislative and administrative frameworks
dealing with customary land within PNG and the Pacific islands region, NRI organized a workshop
in Port Moresby in October 2006 focused on understanding transactions on customary land. Invited
speakers from Fiji, New Zealand, and Vanuatu provided detailed analysis of how land held under
11
The report and case studies are available online: www.ausaid.gov.au/publications/pubout.cfm?ID=3363_9223_6836_
1452_8140 (Accessed on 1 September 2009)
42
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
customary tenure is developed in these countries. Presentations from PNG covered case studies
analyzing (i) transactions accommodating the expansion of urban centers; (ii) industrial, commercial,
and agricultural projects; (iii) the use and abuse of the Incorporated Land Groups process; and (iv)
informal sector transactions. 12 Although the task force report had already been submitted to the
government, this workshop provided the empirical base to contextualize the findings and
recommendations.
The level of analysis, contextualization, and dissemination carried out was made possible by
the availability of local expertise; access to the broader literature; and the technical capacity to review,
analyze, and contextualize the global literature and draw lessons from practice within PNG and
neighboring countries that have institutions facilitating access to land held under customary tenure
for development. Without this capacity, the discussions would have remained highly polarized,
leading to greater confusion, and with biases dictating policy outcomes.
Public relations
Public relations were a key consideration throughout. A major challenge was the country’s high level
of illiteracy, which is compounded by the existence of over 800 distinct spoken languages in PNG.
Selling ideas conceived and packaged in English to this linguistically diverse audience was a
challenge. There was considerable scope for misinformation, which highlighted the importance of
investing in education, communication, and transport infrastructure so that people would be able to
receive, analyze, and respond to the new ideas. In addition to selling the ideas, it was important to
create forums so that people felt that they had been consulted and understood that the ideas were not
conceived and formulated in isolation in Port Moresby.
The public relations strategy was to identify the stakeholder groups, understand the interests
of each, and, where possible, accommodate the concerns raised by the stakeholders. Consistency in
packaging and delivering the information was also crucial. Further, care was taken to ensure that the
information content was relevant to the respective phases: conception, formulation, and
implementation.
At the conception phase and leading up to the NLS, the focus was on highlighting the need
for rethinking how PNG could better manage the country’s vast land resources, with the view to
improving the individual and collective well-being of her citizens. Highlighting the core problems—
such as the growing incidence of land disputes; inefficiencies within the system of land
administration for land held under both formal and customary tenure; and the impact that the
modern economic, social, and political systems are having on the traditional customary land tenure
system—greatly assisted in these efforts.
The proactive role of the government in assuming leadership and using PNG institutions
and experts to address the land reform issues were important points highlighted throughout the
process. It was made clear from the start that the summit would be the sounding board for the land
reform program. The government wanted to seek both a mandate and direction on the land reform
program by staging the NLS. The NLS was publicized through the media and participation was
open to all. The summit report containing the findings, recommendations, and suggestions for the
way forward was published as a special discussion paper (#39) by NRI. The Prime Minister launched
the publication in the Parliamentary conference room and announced the establishment of NLDT to
implement the recommendations of the NLS.
12
Except for the informal sector transactions, NRI contracted DLPP and UNITECH to undertake these case studies.
A Political Economy Analysis of the Customary Land Tenure Reforms in Papua New Guinea
43
The high level of publicity, such as the launch by the Prime Minister, captured the
imagination of the public. The public increasingly became aware that the NLS recommendations
provided the basis for a national land reform program that was owned by the government and in
which PNG institutions and experts played leading roles. Further, publishing the recommendations
as a special discussion paper by NRI ensured that the recommendations remained permanently in the
public domain.
The public relations strategy at the formulation phase was that the findings from the three
expert committees would be compiled into a single collection and disseminated as a single package to
stakeholders through a systematically structured and executed public consultation process. In
implementing this idea, the findings and recommendations were repackaged into four different
formats:
„
an information brief for the National Executive Council (NEC);
„
a standard PowerPoint presentation for use in all public consultations with stakeholders;
„
a paid advertisement in English in the two dailies, and in Pidgin English in a weekly paper;
„
a current affairs program on a local television station (EMTV), in which the chairpersons of
NLDT and the three committees were interviewed; and
„
a weekly radio program titled “Man on the Land” on the National Broadcasting
Commission was used to inform the wider public on the findings, recommendations, and
activities of NLDT.
Detailed public consultations focused on a dialogue with targeted stakeholders. With
respect to politicians, a presentation was made to EMC and then a briefing paper was submitted to
NEC. With respect to senior bureaucrats, the task force made presentations to the Central Agency
Coordinating Committee, which is headed by the Chief Secretary, and the Public Sector Reform
Advisory Group, which is located within the Department of the Prime Minister.
The broader stakeholder consultations were divided between those within Port Moresby
and regional consultations. Stakeholders within Port Moresby were organized into the following
groups: professional groups, funding agencies, state-owned enterprises, business houses, interest
groups, provincial administrations, media, international donors, and UPNG.
For the regional consultations, NLDT divided itself into four teams (with a media crew
embedded where possible) and dispatched to two main towns in each of the country’s four regions.
The Highlands team visited Mt. Hagen and Goroka. The Momase team targeted Lae, Ramu, and
Madang. The Islands team visited Rabaul and Kimbe. The Southern team targeted Popondetta and
Kiunga. 13 The schedule for each visit was widely published in both daily newspapers. In some
instances, local radio stations were used to promote the consultations. At least three groups—
business houses, provincial governments, and the broader community—were targeted at each of the
regional consultations.
Throughout, the layout and information content was consistent. All the presentations were
made in a workshop format. NLDT representatives presented the findings and recommendations
and then allowed for interactions with the participants via comments, questions, and suggestions.
Hard copies of the PowerPoint presentation used were also given out at each of these meetings.
Because the main findings and recommendations were published in the print media before the wider
public consultation, participants were able to bring the clipped newspaper articles with them into the
13
The Kiunga trip was aborted after the airline canceled the flight.
44
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
consultations. This prior access to the findings and recommendations improved the level of
discussion and the exchange of ideas.
At the end of the consultations, a meeting was held to review regional reports in relation to
the recommendations proposed. There was overwhelming support for the recommendations, except
for some minor additions from the Islands region to maintain the land tenure conversion process of
land registration and the Highlands region where they also proposed individual titling to give
security to family-owned land.
The start of the implementation phase was marked by the launch of the NLDT report and
the NLDP by the Prime Minister in the national Parliament conference room in February 2007.
While the program-level consultation framework remains to be conceived, formulated, and executed,
individual implementing agencies are investing in public relations and communications initiatives.
Consistency in packaging, disseminating, and publishing the information for public access
helped considerably. The public relations strategy was so effective that land reform has now become
part of the mainstream public policy domain. This was evident when the Prime Minister launched
the NLDP in February of 2007, an election year. The public outrage against land reform in 2002,
leading to the death of four protestors, was not repeated. Political parties and candidates talked freely
about land reform in a proactive and positive manner during the 2007 national elections. 14
This is no excuse for complacency, however. Implementation has its own process and is
expected to generate challenges and risks with the potential to derail the entire land reform program.
There is no doubt that land reform remains a sensitive issue within PNG. Public relations will
therefore need to remain an important component of the NLDP.
Institutionalizing the land reform program
Its low skill base, the high staff turnover, and the heavy dependence on fly-in fly-out advisors and
consultants starve PNG of institutional memory in policy conception, formulation, and
implementation. Being aware of this, the land reform initiators decided to invest in a process that
ensured broad-based institutional ownership. It began with the involvement of three key line
departments, two leading national universities, and two leading national research institutes in
NLSCC in 2005 and in NLDT in 2006. As of 2007, these agencies and the individuals involved
began to play leading roles in driving reforms from within their respective departments and agencies.
Passion, commitment, and funding
From conception (2005) to the successful passage of the two laws dealing with customary land
tenure reform (2009) has taken a total of 5 years. Passion, commitment of individuals, and timely
provision of funding have all been helpful.
Lands and Physical Planning Minister Temu provided political leadership throughout.
Having worked as a medical doctor and served as the secretary for the Department of Health, Temu
had seen firsthand the plight of ordinary people. He entered politics in 2002, determined to make a
difference. He believed that land reform could play a major role in improving the welfare of the
average citizen.
Technical leadership was provided by NRI Director Dr. Thomas Webster. A team of
national academics provided technical expert advice to NLSCC and NLDT under Webster’s
14
This was evident from the presentations made by political parties at the weekly seminar series organized by NRI in 2007. The
presenters were either leaders or senior members of political parties contesting the national elections in 2007. This seminar
series was broadcast live on national radio.
A Political Economy Analysis of the Customary Land Tenure Reforms in Papua New Guinea
45
leadership. Webster served as the chair of NLSCC in 2005, NLDT in 2006, and NLDAG as of
2007. Webster’s knowledge of the public policy and decision-making processes in PNG and his
personal conviction of the importance of land reform for the betterment of the country were
invaluable factors. Webster and his team continue to lead in this area.
The individuals who worked as part of NLSCC and NLDT provided unpaid services. This
demonstrated a collective commitment of the land reform advocates to passionately pursue the land
reform agenda, with a collective view toward making a difference in PNG.
Although funding has been committed by the government, disbursement has been a
problem. 15 NRI approached AusAID to see if funds appropriated for research support could be used
for funding the work of the land reform program. AusAID’s timely approval to use these funds to
pay for the summit, the work of NLDT, and some expenses related to components of the NLDP
helped to bankroll the program. Unlike its other programs and projects in PNG, AusAID provided
financial support to the land reform initiative without technical assistance and advice.
The timely combination of passionately committed Papua New Guineans, together with the
financial support of AusAID, enabled PNG to succeed in undertaking customary land tenure
reforms. It is a rare moment in history to find benevolent leaders, technocrats, and external agencies
working in a spirit of partnership and commitment. This is the kind of partnership that needs to be
cultivated in order to pursue reforms in other sectors of the PNG economy.
3. Customary Land Tenure Reforms
This section outlines the conception, formulation, and implementation of the customary land tenure
reform component of the broader land reform program.
Committee on Customary Land Development
The Committee on Customary Land Development (CCLD) was tasked to design a framework for
mobilizing land held under customary tenure for development. The main thrust of the committee’s
work focused on Recommendation 4 from the list of recommendations from the NLS (National
Land Summit Coordinating Committee 2006, p. viii). Recommendation 4 states, “Reform the
Incorporated Land Groups (ILGs), and/or the land tenure conversion system, to ensure that: it
represents genuine claims by clans; and landowners are free to decide, and therefore have the absolute
rights to determine all land-user rights.” More specifically, CCLD was directed to offer appropriate
and workable suggestions on customary land registration and reform of the Land Groups
Incorporation Act 1974, Land Tenure Conversion Act 1963, and Lease–Lease–Back provisions of
the Land Act 1996. CCLD also drew on other recommendations that were relevant to its work.
The special challenge for CCLD was that any customary land mechanism had to guarantee
that the land would not be lost to the customary landowners and that the land title would be
bankable—that is, commercial banks would agree to use the land title as security for loans. These
challenges guided CCLD in conceiving a framework that ensured landownership was retained by the
social unit that claimed right to land held under customary tenure but at the same time ensured
security of tenure for the users of the land.
15
A total of K33 million to date.
46
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Processes used in designing the customary land development framework
CCLD took on the most controversial and sensitive aspect of the land reform initiative. However,
the committee was willingly chaired by Dr. Lawrence Kalinoe, then professor and dean of the
UPNG School of Law. The committee comprised members representing a wide variety of interest
groups. These included state implementing agencies, the NGO coalition, and disciplines relevant to
the development of customary land. The selection of committee membership balanced gender,
disciplines, and interest group representation. 16
CCLD adopted an academic approach to its work, with workshops and reviews of the
literature and legal frameworks. The first of the two workshops reviewed the literature dealing with
customary land tenure reforms within PNG and the application of the existing legal frameworks.
The objective of the second workshop was to establish concrete resolutions on developing a secure
framework for mobilizing customary land for development.
Discussion, resolutions, and recommendations
In the first workshop, the NGO representatives expressed strong views against customary land
registration: “They were suspicious of the government’s intention in that they did not trust the
Government, in its capacity to properly and effectively manage customary land, if such land was
registered” (NLDT 2007, p. 99). This declaration had an immediate effect because, “After the NGO
representatives expressed doubts, and spoke against this proposal, not much progress was made. The
general consensus was to defer the registration of customary land, although the workshop did not
make a resolution to this effect” (NLDT 2007, p. 99).
In the second workshop, the reservations expressed in the first workshop were
acknowledged. However, CCLD decided to pursue the development of a framework for customary
land because its work was guided by the recommendations from the summit. CCLD was established
primarily to “…consider and recommend workable approaches to implement the recommendations
of the National Land Summit, and should not deviate from those recommendations” (NLDT 2007,
p. 102).
CCLD settled on the constitutional provisions relating to land provided for under section
56 “…as it was the enabling enactment for the Land Groups Incorporation Act 1974, to make
recommendations for further amendments to this Act, and for such amendments to be consistent
with the Constitution” (NLDT 2007, p. 87). CCLD recommended (i) substantial amendments to
the Land Groups Incorporation Act 1974, (ii) a new law to facilitate the voluntary registration of
customary land, and (iii) the repeal of the Land Tenure Conversion Act 1963. It was also thought
that rather than creating new laws, it would be better to work around existing laws in strengthening
the operations of these regulations, as people were already familiar with them.
The committee adopted a two-step process to develop land held under customary tenure:
Step 1. The social unit that claims rights to land by customary law is incorporated and
made the vehicle for developing customary land by making substantial changes to the Land Tenure
Conversion Act 1974.
Step 2. By introducing a new law titled the Customary Leasehold Act, the portion of land
that the incorporated land group (ILG) agrees to deal on can be surveyed, boundaries demarcated
with cement pegs, and the area of land registered.
The title over the registered land is owned by the ILG, but customary law ceases to apply.
Instead, statute law, the Land Act 1996 being the principal, applies to the access and use of this
16
See full report from CCLD in NLDT (2006, pp. 87–107).
A Political Economy Analysis of the Customary Land Tenure Reforms in Papua New Guinea
47
registered portion. Because the ILG owns the land, the stream of income generated from developing
the registered portion accrues to the ILG. Amendments aimed at improving the accountability and
transparency of the ILG, the assets it owns, and the streams of income generated have also been
incorporated.
Other recommendations included the repeal of the Land Tenure Conversion Act 1963.
However, the Lease–Lease–Back and Acquisition by Negotiation or by Compulsion provisions of the
Land Act 1996 were retained. The latter was retained to ensure that the state has the ability to access
land for public purposes, especially for the delivery of basic goods and services. 17
The recommendations were adopted and marketed by NLDT via the NLDT-managed
public consultation process. Except for the proposal to repeal the Land Tenure Conversion Act 1963
and the need to cater for the introduction of individual land titling (Highlands), the remainder
received overwhelming support and endorsement from the wider consultation process. The East New
Britain Province objected to the repeal of the Land Tenure Conversion Act 1963 during the public
consultation within the province but later rescinded their position in writing. However, given this
difference of opinion, the committee agreed to retain the Land Tenure Conversion Act 1963 in its
final report to NLDT. These recommendations were contained in the report submitted to the
government by NLDT in October 2006. The government accepted the NLDT report findings and
adopted the recommendations submitted by CCLD on developing customary land.
Constitutional and Law Reform Commission (2007)
As part of the NLDP, the Constitutional and Law Reform Commission (CLRC) took on the
responsibility of implementing the recommendations designed to develop customary land. The
following is a description of the CLRC-commissioned process that ultimately led to the passage of
the two laws dealing with customary land in March 2009.
Process commissioned by the Constitutional and Law Reform Commission
In 2007, CCLD Chair Kalinoe was appointed secretary to CLRC. The CLRC chair was the member
for Rabaul, Dr. Alan Marat. Marat was interested in the initiative because he attended the summit in
2005 and participated in the NLDT consultations in the East New Britain Province. The justice
minister and attorney general, under whose jurisdiction CLRC operates, Bire Kimesopa, also
attended the summit. Professor Betty Lovai from the UPNG Department of Anthropology and
Sociology, who was a member of the CCLD, was now a CLRC commissioner.
People who were keen followers and participants of the land reform initiative were holding
responsible positions at an opportune time. This enabled CLRC to initiate a process to implement
the NLDT recommendation to develop a framework for mobilizing land under customary tenure.
Minister Kimosopa issued a reference to CLRC to review the laws and processes dealing with ILGs
and design a system of voluntary customary land registration, utilizing ILGs as a corporate vehicle,
based on the recommendations from the NLDT report in July 2007. This reference paid particular
attention to recommendations 49–54 from NLDT, which is the two-step process described earlier.
The commissioners appointed Professor Lovai to supervise this reference. Under Lovai’s
supervision, CLRC established a working committee comprising representatives from key
organizations, most of whom were either members of NLDT or the three committees of NLDT, to
guide and supervise the work in this reference. The CLRC-instituted committee resumed work
17
See NLDT (2007, pp. 87–107) for details on the deliberations that led to these proposals.
48
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
immediately and released its draft report for public consultation in October 2007 (CLRC 2007). 18
The report provided a detailed review of land tenure laws, existing laws in accessing and acquiring
customary land, customary land development proposals reforming the ILGs, customary land
development proposals to establish a voluntary land registration system, the process from
incorporation of ILGs to the registered land titles, and the impact of the proposals on the law and
practice. Attached to the report were two draft bills: the Draft Land Groups Incorporation
(Amendment) Act 2007 and the Draft Land Registration (Customary Land) (Amendment) Act
2007.
One of the committee members, Professor Rudy James from the UPNG Law School, who
has extensive knowledge of law, land law, and land policy in PNG, submitted a discussion paper
(James 2007) arguing that the committee should consider changing the original idea to introduce a
new law titled Customary Leasehold Act to facilitate the voluntary registration of customary land, as
developed by CCLD of NLDT. He proposed the inclusion of a new chapter in the Land
Registration Act 1974. Compared with the direct granting of interests to deal on land as per the
original proposal, the indirect means via the Land Registration Act 1974 had three distinct
advantages, highlighted by James as:
(1) It is multi-purpose and provides for registration of State leases, trusts land etc;
(2) it protects third party rights and interests in the land; and (3) The system is free
from technicalities, the forms to be used for dealings are simple and easily
understood and land transactions are effected speedily. This simplified method of
dealing in land could accelerate the rate of economic development by creating a
favourable image for foreign and local investors (CLRC 2008, p. 36).19
The committee adopted the James proposal because it was consistent with the intention to
develop an efficient framework for mobilizing land held under customary tenure for development.
Public consultation
The draft report, which was made widely available in printed copies and in soft form on the CLRC
website (as Draft Report 5) by October 2007, was the basis for a wider consultation process. Apart
from direct and written submissions, the main consultation involved the staging of a major
workshop, organized in consultation with the Papua New Guinea Law Society, in Port Moresby in
November 2007. The general public was invited to this workshop through a public advertisement in
the two daily newspapers. The National Broadcasting Commission transmitted the entire discussion
live throughout the country. The proposals were systematically covered in a step-by-step process.
Comments, suggestions, and questions were noted by the secretariat for the working group.
A targeted workshop was organized by the Land Research Group based at NRI in August
2008 covering a broad range of public sector implementing agencies. DLPP, Magisterial Services,
CLRC, Registrar of Births and Deaths, the Department of Provincial and Local Level Government,
and the Office of Urbanisation attended this workshop. A detailed matrix was formulated defining
the procedural and administrative requirements for the various stakeholders within the public and
private sectors and the customary landowning social unit at every stage defined in both laws.
18
19
Available online: www.clrc.gov.pg/pdfs/review_of_ilg_first_draft.pdf (Accessed on 1 September 2009)
The initial advice was submitted by Professor James to CLRC in a discussion paper titled Land Registration and dated 14 June
2007. James was the principal lawyer involved in the Commission of Inquiry into Land Matters (1973) undertaken just before
independence in 1975.
A Political Economy Analysis of the Customary Land Tenure Reforms in Papua New Guinea
49
Members of the CLRC working committee briefed members of the NGO coalition at a major
conference organized by the NGO coalition at UPNG in November 2007. Finally, a presentation
was made to provincial governors at the Parliament building, also in November 2007.
Passage through Parliament
In May 2008, the committee prepared its final report for the government, taking into account all the
comments, suggestions, and views gathered through the stakeholder consultation process (CLRC
2008). The final report included a section covering the analysis of the comments, suggestions, and
views. This was to maintain the spirit of transparency and openness adopted by the broader land
reform program throughout. Attached to the final report were the two draft bills.
The final report was submitted to the government through Justice Minister and Attorney
General (in the new government formed after the 2007 national election) Dr. Alan Marat. The
National Executive Council accepted and adopted the findings, recommendations, and draft bills in
October 2008. The bills were then submitted to the legal draftsman in November 2008, and on 19
March 2009, the Lands and Physical Planning Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Dr. Puka Temu
stood in for Dr. Marat and presented the bills to Parliament. Parliament unanimously passed both
bills.
4. Factors Underpinning the Successful Reform of Customary
Land Tenure
From the preceding analysis, the following key factors emerge as providing the underpinning of the
successful reforms to customary land tenure: (i) customary land tenure reform was part of a broader
land reform program, (ii) the processes adopted were inclusive and transparent, (iii) there was
consistency in the personalities involved, (iv) understanding stakeholder interests and incentives was
crucial, and (v) there was measured external involvement.
Customary Land Tenure Reform was Part of a Broader Land Reform Program
In contrast to the present process, the World Bank–sponsored reform initiative in 1994 and the
Mekere government initiative in 2002 singled out customary land tenure reform. Narrowing the
focus to customary land tenure understandably elevated fears about potential land grabbing by
wealthy and well-connected locals, nationals, and foreigners. The perceived social and welfare
implications from such outcomes for the great majority of Papua New Guineans living in the rural
sector and relying on customary land for their livelihoods were significant. It has long been argued
that customary land tenure serves as the social safety net for the great majority of Papua New
Guineans. Furthermore, a discussion focused on customary land tenure reform raises concerns about
the exclusion of the marginal and poor within society. The need to ensure gender equity in a
changing society and the diverse cultural and language differences add further complexities. In a
country with low literacy levels and more than 800 distinct languages, this creates opportunities for
misinformation and capture by interest groups.
The approach taken allowed for these issues to be discussed and options to be explored. It
was an inclusive and transparent process, thus providing an objective environment for developing a
framework for mobilizing customary land. The work of CCLD and CLRC complemented the
framework on developing customary land. The whole program was neatly packaged, marketed, and
50
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
implemented within a framework that aims to deliver security of tenure and achieve a win–win
outcome for customary landowners and users of the land. 20
A Nationally Owned, Inclusive, and Transparent Process
The process was initiated by the government and led by PNG institutions and experts, who were
tasked with leading in the conception (summit), formulation (task force), and implementation (the
NLDP) of the broader land reform program. The same applied to conceiving (summit), formulating
(CCLD), and implementing (CLRC) the customary land tenure reform laws.
For the broader land reform program, NRI played the lead role in providing support to the
secretariat and the academic leadership, with assistance from UPNG, UNITECH, Institute for
National Affairs, and the three line departments (DNPM, Department of Justice and Attorney
General, and DLPP). For the customary land tenure reform component, CLRC played the leading
role, with inputs from UPNG, NRI, DLPP, and the Office of Urbanisation.
The process was inclusive and transparent. Through the summit, the government was given
the mandate and the direction to undertake customary land tenure reforms. The views of the student
body, the NGO coalition, landowners, investors (both foreigners and nationals), professionals with
interests in the land sector, and financial institutions were gathered and analyzed at every stage:
conception, formulation, and implementation.
At every stage, findings and recommendations were documented and copies made available
to all the stakeholders. The government was kept informed through the direct briefs that were
provided to responsible ministers, EMC, and the cabinet. The public service and other major
stakeholders were kept informed through presentations. The general public was kept informed
through the media. Each milestone was publicized with the launch of a publication by the Prime
Minister in the Parliament conference room in front of the national and international media, heads
of missions and departments, and other stakeholders.
The processes for the broader land reform program and the customary land tenure reform
were distinct but complementary. After seeking a mandate and directions for undertaking customary
land tenure reforms, the task force, through CCLD, formulated the ideas and the legal framework.
After the government accepted and adopted the ideas formulated by CCLD, CLRC implemented
the recommendations by initiating another process, sanctioned by the justice minister and attorney
general. A committee chaired by a CLRC commissioner formulated the ideas conceived by CCLD
into an implementable package, drafted the legislation, undertook public consultations, and
submitted it to the government for presentation to Parliament.
Following the spirit of the broader land reform program, CLRC released a draft report
(2007) and a final report (2008). The draft report was used for public consultation. The final report
was released to place in the public domain the findings and recommendations; analysis of comments,
suggestions, and responses; and the draft legislation.
The release of published reports at every stage provides a record of the ideas, considerations,
analyses, and justifications for the final decisions. These publications are useful reference documents
for academic and policy analysis, both now and in the future.
20
See Fairhead, Kauzi and Yala (2009) for an elaboration on this point.
A Political Economy Analysis of the Customary Land Tenure Reforms in Papua New Guinea
51
Consistency in the Personalities Involved
The customary land tenure reform program benefited immensely from the involvement of the same
personalities in positions of influence at various stages of the process. The discussion here is confined
to continuity at the political, bureaucratic, and technocratic levels.
At the political level, Temu remained lands and physical planning minister from 2005 until
recently. Kimisopa, who lost his seat in the 2007 national elections, attended the land summit in
2005; in 2007, as justice minister and attorney general, he issued the reference for CLRC to
implement the recommendations relating to the development of customary land. In 2005, Marat, as
the CLRC chair, attended the summit and actively participated at the East New Britain Provincial
consultations by NLDT, and in 2007 he facilitated the issuance of the reference. In 2008, Marat
received the final report from CLRC in his capacity as justice minister and attorney general and
facilitated the process for the report to be submitted to and discussed by cabinet, and for the
findings, recommendations, and draft legislation to be adopted by the government. It was Temu
who introduced the bills in Parliament on 19 March 2009, which were passed unanimously.
At the bureaucratic level, the key players have been Dr. Lawrence Kalinoe and Professor
Betty Lovai. Kalinoe was a core member of the summit coordinating committee in 2005, presented
one of the concept papers at the summit, and chaired CCLD in 2006. In 2007, as CLRC secretary,
Kalinoe took it upon himself to ensure that the CCLD recommendations were implemented. It was
Kalinoe, in his capacity as CLRC secretary who initiated the issuance of the reference and
establishment of the working committee, prepared the draft reports and legislation, coordinated the
consultations, prepared the submissions to cabinet, and ensured the bills were ready for tabling in
Parliament. Lovai, who was a CCLD member in 2006, took charge of the CLRC process in her
capacity as CLRC commissioner in 2007.
At the technical level, NRI Director Dr. Thomas Webster played a significant role in both
the broader land reform program and the customary land reform process. Webster chaired the
National Land Summit Coordinating Committee (NLSCC) in 2005, NLDT in 2006, and NLDAG
in 2007. From 2007 to 2008, he was a core member of the CLRC committee that implemented the
NLDT recommendations relating to the development of customary land tenure. Webster was
supported throughout by a cadre of PNG academics and administrative support staff based at NRI.
There was consistency at the political, bureaucratic, and technical levels from 2005 to 2009.
This is more than just coincidence. This consistency in the personalities was crucial for both the
broader land reform program and the customary land tenure reform initiative.
Understanding Stakeholder Interests and Incentives
There are interests and incentives that define every stakeholder’s interest or engagement in an issue.
This general principle applies equally to land reform, particularly customary land tenure reform.
Understanding the incentives of each stakeholder that showed interest in the land reform agenda in
PNG assisted in the successful passage of the two laws dealing with customary land tenure reforms.
Here we focus on the incentives for the following stakeholders: political, technical, students and the
NGO coalition, the business community, externally based interest groups, and customary
landowners.
Political leadership for land reform was provided by Temu throughout the entire process.
He had seen the plight of ordinary Papua New Guineans throughout his working life. He entered
politics in 2002 with a clear motivation to make a difference. Land reform that enabled the
mobilization of customary land to create wealth for landowners appealed to him. Committed to this
52
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
conviction, he invested in a PNG team, equally motivated to make a difference, to provide the
technical input to help articulate the case for land reform within PNG. He used the regular briefs
provided by NLSCC and NLDT to generate support at the political level.
At the technical level, Webster provided the leadership throughout. Webster was a former
provincial administrator in the Western Highlands Province. As the provincial administrator, he had
facilitated customary land registration as part of a provincial government initiative. He also chaired
the provincial physical planning committee and dealt with illegal allocations of reserved recreational
land for commercial development within Mt. Hagen. He had dealt with customary landowner claims
over alienated land housing important state institutions. His background training as Catholic clergy
had a part in motivating him to pursue policy agendas that would help improve the well-being of
Papua New Guineans. His work experience and graduate studies were in policy formulation and
implementation. The latter equipped him to guide the land reform program, embedding it solidly in
a process that generated dialogue, partnership, and institutional ownership. Webster’s ability to
facilitate the generation and discussion of divergent views and ideas was invaluable in ensuring that
decisions were made and that the process progressed.
There was a team of committed and technically qualified Papua New Guineans and PNGbased experts who served in NLSCC (2005), NLDT (2006), and the CLRC-initiated working group
(2007). Yala (author of this chapter), for instance, provided academic leadership and intellectual
guidance that helped maintain focus and relate the PNG program to international developments.
This grasp of the international literature gave confidence to the work in arguing with external
interest groups who criticized and attempted to undermine the PNG land reform program. Yala’s
return to NRI after completion of his PhD studies at the end of 2004 coincided with the initiation
of the land reform program by the lands and physical planning minister, and the government’s
invitation to NRI to lead the coordination of the NLS in early 2005. 21 Kalinoe’s understanding of
PNG laws dealing with customary land tenure and Webster’s knowledge and skills in providing the
oversight for the entire process proved invaluable.
The commitment of this cadre of PNG professionals was demonstrated by their willingness
to work unpaid for 5 years! That speaks volumes about their commitment and passion for reform.
Students and the NGO coalition had been passionate opponents of land reform,
particularly any move to reform customary land tenure. Engaging with the students to educate them
about the importance of undertaking a comprehensive land reform program greatly assisted.
Engaging academic staff from UPNG and UNITECH in NLSCC, NLDT, and the various
committees also helped. More significant, though, was the essay competition organized for tertiary
and secondary students. 22 Allocating time for students to present their views and ideas about land
reform at the summit was also useful. Collectively, these interventions constituted objective ways of
engaging students and confronting misinformation and prejudices.
The NGO coalition had to be engaged as a collective body of highly heterogeneous entities
with divergent interests and objectives. Further, many of the PNG-based NGOs have international
links, funding for their local operations is mainly sourced externally, and it is a sector that provides
employment opportunities for many Papua New Guineans and foreigners. These links and
incentives warranted the land reform advocates engaging the NGO coalition.
21
22
Yala drew on his thesis (Yala 2004), which explored the cost of funds and access to credit by smallholder oil palm growers in
PNG under three land tenure arrangements: customary tenure, state lease, and customary purchase.
See a description of this in NLSCC (2006, p. 2).
A Political Economy Analysis of the Customary Land Tenure Reforms in Papua New Guinea
53
The NGO coalition was invited to the summit to state their collective view. The speaker
was selected by the coalition. There was continued dialogue and engagement throughout. For
instance, a workshop was organized in November 2008 for the NGO coalition, at their request, to
allow them the opportunity to provide written submissions on the NLDT findings and
recommendations and the NLDP itself. Over time, it became clear that on many of the issues, such
as gender equity, corruption, protection of customary land, proper identification of landowners, and
inefficiencies within the system of land administration, there was common agreement between the
NGO coalition and the proponents of land reform. The NGO coalition will continue to play an
active role through their involvement within NLDAG.
The business community has a vested interest in accessing land for private enterprise.
Inefficiencies within the land administration system have undermined their access to and optimal
investment in land held under both state and freehold ownership. Repeated claims over land and
compensation for land held under state and freehold ownership—the latter mainly within the
plantation sector—by a new generation of customary landowners undermines security of tenure over
these lands. Inefficiencies within existing legal frameworks for accessing customary land have
restricted access to such lands to large-scale businesses. Small- to medium-scale enterprises have been
left out. These factors have collectively raised the cost of borrowing and undermined private sector
investment. Reforms to the systems of land administration, land dispute settlement, customary land
tenure, and the enforcement of property rights are areas that the private sector strongly supported.
The permanent presence of the private sector in the land reform program was via the
Institute for National Affairs (NLSCC in 2005, NLDT in 2006, and NLDAG as of 2007). A wide
range of private sector participants attended and also made presentations at the summit. They were
consulted both in Port Moresby and at the regional consultations in 2006. The lands and physical
planning minister spoke at various forums such as the Port Moresby Chamber of Commerce
Business Breakfast (2006) and the Australia–Papua New Guinea Business Forum in Cairns, Australia
(2005).
The banking and finance sector had a special presence throughout the reform process. Three
sector representatives made presentations at the summit and within the Committee on Land
Administration as part of NLDT; they were also consulted independently on the proposals dealing
with the development of customary land at the NLDT consultations in Port Moresby (2006) and
under the CLRC-initiated process (2008). With respect to the latter, in 2008, before submitting the
report and draft laws to cabinet for approval, the lands and physical planning minister wrote to the
banking and financial institutions seeking their views and concerns, if any, on the draft laws. The
views of the banking and finance sector were seen as vital because the reform was aimed at
developing a viable land and properties market. This would require active interest in and funding of
projects by the banking and finance sector. For this, security of tenure and bankability of land titles
is crucial. However, it remains to be seen if these land reform initiatives will make the asset (land
title) bankable.
Externally based interest groups have had substantial influence in both the discussion and
land policy developments, and through interventions on land reform in PNG. The influence the
externally based players have had to be acknowledged and dealt with appropriately. The three major
groups are the overseas-based academics, international NGOs, and donor agencies.
There is a large Australia-based academic and consultancy community with long-standing
interests in land, agricultural, anthropological, resource management, and economic development in
PNG. This community has been debating for and against land reform for many years, especially
54
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
about customary land tenure. This debate is highly polarized and differentiated by discipline. The
arguments can be best grouped into abstract, descriptive interpretations of customary land tenure
systems and practices, and in defense of certain ideas, policies, and/or laws.
Being aware of this debate, the decision of the government, which was implemented by
NLSC and NLDT and the CLRC-instituted committee, was to rely on PNG institutions and experts
to independently review this material and contextualize it for the PNG situation. This could only be
done by PNG experts who have an awareness of the broader literature; a lived knowledge,
experience, and awareness of their own customary land tenure; and a desire to contribute to the
development of their country. While Yala (this author) provided the academic leadership on the
economics of land titling, and Kalinoe provided the intellectual leadership on the legal framework for
developing customary land, the entire team was motivated to get it correct because they and their kin
will face the consequences of their actions. This has meant denying direct foreign engagement but,
where appropriate, drawing on ideas from the literature.
The second team of external influences is the international NGO movement. The NGO
coalition within PNG has direct and indirect connections with the international NGO movement.
Because of the influence that international NGOs have on the local NGO coalition, their
involvement was facilitated through the active engagement of the PNG-based NGO coalition. The
PNG-based coalition and their international counterparts were free to analyze and compare
international land reform experiences.
The third externally based community was the donor agencies, both bilateral and
multilateral. PNG has a large international donor presence, led by the European Union at the
multilateral level and by AusAID at the bilateral level. International financial institutions such as the
Asian Development Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank have offices in
Port Moresby. All the international donor agencies agree on the importance of secure property rights
and the need to undertake land reform in PNG. However, given the sensitive nature of the land
reform issue and the widely known World Bank–sponsored reform attempt in 1995, which triggered
strong antireform protests, their direct involvement was sanctioned. The PNG government
ownership of the reform agenda and PNG leadership of the entire process had to be maintained
throughout. However, AusAID’s permission for NRI to use some of the research grant to fund the
land reform program helped fund the work of NLSCC, the staging of the summit, the work of
NLDT, and some costs associated with the NLDP.
All donors were treated as important stakeholders. They were provided briefs during the
public consultation phase and were informed that their involvement would be at the invitation of the
PNG government, especially at the implementation phase. Donors respected that stance.
Customary land owners are important stakeholders in the discussion on customary land
tenure reform. However, defining customary landowners as a stakeholder group and understanding
their incentives and interests is practically difficult. To begin with, every indigenous Papua New
Guinean is a customary landowner by customary law. Customary landowners as a stakeholder group
are therefore highly heterogeneous, being distinctly defined by culture, education, economic activity,
location, and exposure. Adding further complexity is the fact that there are more than 800 distinct
spoken languages, illiteracy rates are high, and customary land tenure supports the livelihood of the
more than 85% of the total population that reside in rural areas. Marketing the idea of customary
land tenure reform, a modern concept packaged in English, to this highly heterogeneous stakeholder
was, and will continue to be, a challenge.
A Political Economy Analysis of the Customary Land Tenure Reforms in Papua New Guinea
55
In recognition of the complexity, the land reform advocates instituted a process that
facilitated the analysis of issues and options by PNG customary landowners—whether as politicians,
policy makers, academics, business people, subsistence farmers, people living in project-impacted
areas, and residents within peri-urban areas—with a view to collectively defining a framework for
mobilizing customary land for development.
The membership of the land reform team also gave credibility to the reform agenda, the
findings, and the proposals. The participants in the process were not foreign consultants who could
write reports, make recommendations, and remove themselves from the implementation and its
impacts. They were high-profile individuals with standing in the PNG community and would be
held accountable if things went wrong. Papua New Guineans were looking for solutions to address
the problem. Whatever they did, they would have to live with the consequences. If successful, there
would be benefits for them, their children, their relatives, and collectively, their country. If they
failed, they would have to cope with the ridicule and criticisms that would follow.
The Land Groups Incorporation (Amendment) Act 2009 ensures that land ownership
remains in perpetuity within the social unit that claims rights to the land by customary law. The
Land Registration (Customary Land) (Amendment) Act 2009 ensures that the land titles issued from
the portions released for development are bankable. This framework is beneficial to the customary
landowners because their claim to land by custom is formalized and they stand to benefit from the
income streams generated from the developments that occur on their land. This framework struck a
chord with the views of the broader customary landowning community as a stakeholder group.
Delivery of the land reform program as a package also helped. Inefficiencies within the land
dispute settlement and land administration systems were being addressed concurrently. Furthermore,
the application of laws was voluntary. All of the above helped customary landowners as a stakeholder
group to buy into the proposals for customary land tenure reform.
5. Lessons for External Agency Engagement
Experiences from the land reform initiative demonstrate that vested interests can be a binding
constraint to economic growth and development in PNG. The reform initiative that began in 2005
and has succeeded in having the two laws dealing with customary land tenure passed in 2009 was
successful because the proponents recognized the capacity of reform opponents to undermine and
even derail the initiative. The team designed strategies to effectively manage the opposition.
Moreover, new strategies and tactics will need to be employed throughout the implementation
phase.
The success of the customary land tenure reform provides the following useful insights on
how external agencies can engage in PNG:
„
Broad and long-term. External agencies need to think broadly and long-term about their
engagement in PNG. Their entry point should be to invest in sustainable processes and
programs initiated by indigenous “champions.” These champions could be in politics, the
bureaucracy, academia, NGOs, or the private sector. In a country that suffers from chronic
poverty in skill and institutional capacity, it is the individual champions who stand to make
a difference. Identifying champions across different sectors and agencies and supporting
them to work as a team has the potential to make a difference. This is what enabled success
in the case of the customary land reform initiative in PNG. While Temu championed the
political agenda, Webster and Kalinoe led the technical and bureaucratic teams, respectively.
At the institutional level, the Ministry of Lands and Physical Planning provided the political
56
„
„
„
„
23
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
leadership, NRI provided the technical leadership, and CLRC provided the bureaucratic
leadership. AusAID provided the funding.
Skill and capacity development. Invest in skill and capacity development within the
country. In-country institutions and skilled locals understand the domestic contexts—
political, social, and economic. They also understand the social, economic, and political
interactions that define the political economy. They have personal and social links with the
key players and stakeholders. With respect to the land reform initiative, the key players had
postgraduate training in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United
States, and were in positions of influence at the opportune time. The local institutions that
played key roles were the country’s major academic and policy-making institutions. The
ability to access the international literature and analyze the information drawn from the
broader global debate enabled the team to contextualize the kind of reform suited for PNG,
given her diverse cultural heritage and level of economic development. Without this, the
debate could have remained polarized and generated confusion and resentment against land
reform.
Political and policy stability. External agencies should support the development of
institutions that help develop political and policy stability. The motivation for this comes
from the fact that Temu was the lands and physical planning minister from 2005 to July
2007 under the previous parliament and from September 2007 to July 2010, under the
current Parliament, both led by the same political party (National Alliance Party) and Prime
Minister (Somare). 23 This stability has greatly helped in pushing the customary tenure
reform laws. The Organic Law on the Integrity of Political Parties and Candidates and the
Limited Preferential Voting System, both laws enacted by the Morauta government in
2002, played a role in ensuring political stability, and thereby policy stability. The two laws
are complementary and, if supported, they have the potential to support the development of
stable political parties, policies, and government (Yala and Sanida 2010).
Contestability of ideas. External agencies should invest in processes that encourage
contestability of ideas. All stakeholders and individuals have their own biases and interests.
These biases, whether they are officially sanctioned or not, influence policy advice,
formulation, and implementation, and ultimately determine developmental outcomes. The
land reform program invested in a process that objectively reviewed the literature, analyzed
the ideas therein, and adopted those ideas that best suited the PNG context.
Education, communication, and transport infrastructure. For the medium to long term,
external agencies should encourage and support investment in education, communication,
and transport infrastructure. It was a challenge for the team advocating land reform to
translate ideas packaged in English to a population speaking over 800 different languages.
Improved education, communication, and transport would enable access to and analysis of
information and an understanding of its practical applications.
Temu was also deputy prime minister and minister for mining in the current Parliament until July 2010.
A Political Economy Analysis of the Customary Land Tenure Reforms in Papua New Guinea
57
6. Conclusion
This paper describes the broader land reform program in PNG, gives an analysis of the customary
land tenure reform process, identifies and analyzes the main success factors, and draws lessons useful
for external agency engagement in PNG.
Despite the high level of sensitivity about land reform, especially that dealing with
customary land tenure, combined with the complexities associated with low skill levels, high illiteracy
rates, and scarce financial resources, land reform has so far succeeded in PNG. Land reform is now
within the mainstream of public policy discussions. Individual agencies are beginning to implement
core components of the program. The two laws aimed at mobilizing customary land for
development, under the stewardship of CLRC, were passed unanimously by Parliament, marking an
important achievement for the PNG land reform program. This constitutes a milestone in
establishing the foundations for sustained, broad-based economic growth and development in PNG.
However, the need to maintain political and public interest as the NLDP proceeds toward full
implementation remains a greater challenge.
The broader land reform program, started in 2005 through the staging of the NLS, was
formulated through the work of NLDT in 2006 and began implementation under the NLDP in
2007. Given the mandate and direction from the summit, CCLD formulated the ideas for
customary land tenure reform in 2006 and CLRC began implementing them in 2007. On 19 March
2009, the Parliament unanimously passed two laws that introduced changes to customary land
tenure. These laws provide a framework for mobilizing land held under customary tenure for
development.
Undertaking microeconomic reforms is difficult because there are always losers and winners.
Understanding the political economy of PNG and the role various parties play in promoting or
undermining fundamental microeconomic reforms is crucial. This has been demonstrated by the
successful passing of the customary land tenure reform laws. The champions of the land reform
program invested in a well thought-out, inclusive, and transparent process. This process enabled
divergent ideas to be discussed and initiatives to be conceived, formulated, and implemented. The
involvement of a core group of motivated players in the political, technical, and bureaucratic arenas,
in positions of influence at the opportune time, assisted in this successful outcome.
The role of a cadre of technically competent Papua New Guineans with the necessary
contextual awareness, supported by strong leadership throughout each stage (conception,
formulation, and implementation) was crucial. In response to the question of how land can be
accessed for development, the team initiated a clearly defined conceptual framework within which to
analyze the international debate on the economics of land reforms, develop policy, and undertake the
analysis to visualize the kind of land reform needed for PNG, given its cultural diversity and level of
development. Without this, the whole process would have remained vulnerable to capture by interest
groups.
Identifying stakeholders and understanding their incentives and their role in the reform
program was useful. The process facilitated their objective engagement in a manner that allowed
individual stakeholders to state their positions, explore options, make decisions, and progress to the
next phase. Generating factual data and information that best illustrated the realities assisted in
distinguishing myths from facts. Consistency in the personalities involved, demonstration of
knowledge, and packaging and delivering the message at every phase institutionalized trust,
commitment, and national ownership.
58
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Lessons useful for undertaking sensitive reforms in other sectors of the economy and the
role that external agencies can play, given the political economy of PNG, have also been discussed.
External agencies need to (i) think broadly and long term; (ii) invest in skill and capacity
development; (iii) invest in institutions that will help develop political and policy stability;
(iv) promote the contestability of ideas; and (v) invest in education, communication, and transport
infrastructure.
Unlike the previous failed initiatives, the present PNG land reform program, especially the
customary land tenure reform component, has been making satisfactory progress so far. However,
given the sensitive nature of customary land tenure reforms, successful implementation of the
broader reform program and the newly enacted laws aimed at mobilizing land under customary
tenure for development remains a great challenge.
A Political Economy Analysis of the Customary Land Tenure Reforms in Papua New Guinea
59
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62
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
4 Telecommunication
Regulatory Reforms and
the Credibility Problem
Case Studies from
Papua New Guinea and Tonga
by Siope V. 'Ofa
ABSTRACT
Reform of telecommunication regulations is a recent policy phenomenon in small island developing
states, including in five Pacific island countries over the past 5 years. While there has been much
fanfare about the early outcomes of the telecommunication reforms, little attention has been given to
the regulatory pitfalls the Pacific island reformers encountered. In particular, regulatory capture has
compromised the credibility of announced liberalization programs due to domestic political pressures
in the early stages of the reform programs.
The paper’s analysis is based on interviews conducted with telecommunication policy
experts in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Tonga during September–December 2008. The domestic
policy restraints imposed by independent regulators were found to be vulnerable to political
interference. It was also found that World Trade Organization (WTO) telecommunication
commitments constrained governments against policy reversals and provided greater policy certainty.
The paper proposes that the credibility of Pacific governments’ announced liberalization policies for
the telecommunication sector will be enhanced if governments undertake WTO accession
commitments relating to the sector.
64 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
1. Introduction
Do multilateral policy restraints enhance the credibility of telecommunication regulatory reform in
Pacific island states? This paper examines two propositions. First, multilateral policy restraints
enhanced the credibility of telecommunication regulatory reforms in PNG and Tonga. Second,
successful domestic political adoption of multilateral policy restraint is easier when
telecommunication technology overcomes some of the inherent challenges of isolated small island
states. The case study evidence from PNG and Tonga is found to support these propositions.
Field work was undertaken in PNG and Tonga on the telecommunication policies
implemented since the introduction of mobile phone services to examine the impact of WTO
commitments on the credibility of the telecommunication reforms. Evidence was found to support
the proposition that WTO commitments provided policy restraint in an uncertain regulatory
environment. Evidence was also found that new technology for wireless telephony networks directly
addresses the challenges of being small and isolated. Directly addressing the challenges of small and
isolated states reduces opposition from vested interest groups and the general public toward policy
reform.
The qualitative evidence draws on 26 semi-structured interviews with experts conducted in
the capitals of the two countries. Analyses of secondary sources such as parliamentary reports,
government reports, and media releases were also undertaken to provide supporting evidence.
The chapter is structured as follows. Section 2 gives a brief review of concepts and theories
related to the so-called “credibility problem.” Section 3 discusses the context of WTO
telecommunication reform commitments in PNG and Tonga. Section 4 analyzes controversial
regulatory behavior argued to induce policy uncertainty. Section 5 examines the policy implications
of WTO telecommunication commitments and the credibility of the telecommunication reforms.
2. The Credibility Problem
The idea that the outcome of government policies can be crucially affected by their perceived
credibility is well established (Srivastava 1994, p. 449). When enormous financial and capital
investments are at stake, the credibility of domestic policies is very important. This is particularly the
case in the telecommunication sector, where investment involves large sunk costs in asset-specific
infrastructure that cannot be redeployed (Garcia-Murillo and Kuerbis 2005, p. 785). 1 Therefore,
telecommunication investments require careful risk assessment of the sociopolitical, institutional, and
economic environments of potential markets.
Levy and Spiller (1996, p. 3) identified three important characteristics of
telecommunication markets. First, there is often only a handful of major telecommunication
operators. 2 The small number of operators has potential implications for collusive behaviors. Second,
the assets are usually not redeployable, with very little technological usability in other utility sectors.
Third, telecommunication services are as relevant to structured interest groups as to the general
public. Therefore, regulatory behaviors and policies affecting the sector will often be politicized.
These three characteristics demand cautious business strategies.
If governments were able to announce future policy reforms and comprehensively
implement them—assuming that all other political and socioeconomic factors remained constant—
1
2
See section 5 for further discussion on the nature of the telecommunication sector.
Usually one to three telecommunication operators.
Telecommunication Regulatory Reforms and the Credibility Problem 65
the credible policy literature 3 suggests that credible policies result in higher productivity 4 and
growth. 5 Yet, governments frequently encounter domestic and international pressures that compel
policy makers to renege on previously announced policies. This uncertainty about policies is often
termed the “time inconsistency problem.” In their seminal work, Kydland and Prescott (1977, p.
487) highlighted the importance of credible commitment to announced policy. They argued that
“policymakers should follow rules rather than have discretion. The reason is that they are not stupid
or evil, but rather, that discretion implies selecting the decision which is best, given the current
situation.” In other words, a case can be argued for fixed over discretionary regulations to instill
credibility and certainty about reforms.
Governments often announce policy reform programs in advance to influence the
expectations and investment behavior of the private sector. The introduction of competition in
mobile phone services has generally been the first step announced by developing countries in reform
programs aimed at liberalizing telecommunication markets. In the Pacific, five island states
announced telecommunication reform programs beginning with the introduction of competition in
the mobile service sector. Independent regulators were established to ensure minimal conflict of
interest and clear demarcation between policy makers, regulators, and state-owned
telecommunication providers.
The role of independent regulators in providing certainty for reform policies is well
established. 6 Bertelli and Whitford (2009, p. 520) best capture the role of independent regulators:
... put simply, a government’s commitment to a regulatory rule creates the
expectations of a predictable investment environment; regulatory independence helps
to supply that commitment. Firms can contract to deliver goods and services at lower
risk if they believe regulators are unlikely to change the rules of the game during the
period of the contract. This diminution of risk can be seen as reducing transactions
costs.
The regulator should be independent from government control (Ros 1997, p. 40), which
enhances the efficient and fair allocation of resources in the telecommunication sector (Lee and
Levendis 2006, p. 407). However, even with the best-intentioned reforms, with domestic restraint
policies such as an independent regulator in place, the time inconsistency problem may still create
credibility problems. The independent regulator is vulnerable to political interference through
legislative amendments that cater to interest group pressures. Melody (1997, p. 195) argued that “the
regulator either lost, or never had the independence to make professional decisions on their merits
because of undue influence either from politicians, politically driven Ministries, or the regulated
monopolies.” The outcome of such uncertainty for potential private investors is hesitation about
investment. Rodrik (1991, p. 230) suggested that rational behavior on the part of the private sector
calls for withholding investment until much of the residual uncertainty regarding the success of the
reforms is eliminated. The uncertainty drives up prices of services or leads to the withholding of a
3
4
5
6
See Kydland and Prescott (1977), Blackburn and Christensen (1989), and Cottarelli and Giannini (1997) for influential
research on the credibility of policy.
Telecommunications development generates substantial positive externalities economy-wide (Roller and Waverman 2001, pp.
909–911).
Brunetti, Kisunko, and Weder (1998, pp. 353–356) found that policy surprises and reversals, uncertain contract enforcements,
and high levels of corruption most likely translate into lower investment and growth.
See also Tyler and Bednarczyk (1993), Levy and Spiller (1994), Ros (1997), Melody (1997), Noll (1999), Baudrier (2001),
Stren and Trillas (2003), Wallsten (2003), Lee and Levendis (2006), and Bertelli and Whitford (2009).
66 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
part or all of the investment until the investor can be sure that a reform policy is irreversible
(Aryeetey 1994, p. 1212). 7
Rodrik (1989, pp. 758, 770–771) argued that adopting a gradual pace on policy reform
may give negative signals about government’s real intentions. Therefore, genuine, reform-minded
governments need to “overshoot” 8 policy to address the uncertainty posed by the time inconsistency
of policies. 9 At the broadest level, overshooting policy implies a case for credible fixed rules that bind
governments. The multilateral policy restraint provided by WTO telecommunication commitments
provides such binding rules. The main difference between this multilateral policy restraint and the
domestic policy restraint provided by an independent regulator is the domestic and international
costs of policy reversal by governments. 10 Commitments on telecommunication liberalization
reforms in the WTO are legally binding and failure to adhere to the commitments can be challenged
by other member countries through WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body. Bosworth and Duncan
(2002, p. 10) best capture this argument by suggesting that
... the main economic benefit to be gained by a country from WTO membership is
help in facilitating policy reforms that liberalize trade and, as a by-product, support a
market economy... By ‘locking in’ such reforms internationally, WTO accession
[commitments] provide governments with a defence mechanism against future
policy backsliding or “de-liberalization” in response to domestic protectionist
pressures.
3. Papua New Guinea and Tonga: World Trade Organization
Telecommunication Commitments
The Multilateral Trading System
International trade is important for development and poverty alleviation (Hoekman, Michalopoulos,
and Winters 2004, p. 481). The WTO promotes trade and in that sense is therefore prodevelopment (Hoekman 2007, p. 267). In pursuing freer global trade, the WTO is a mechanism
through which binding policy disciplines are negotiated and enforced to help address “negative
spillovers” that are imposed by governments on each other’s trade regime (Hoekman 2007, p. 269).
The WTO has evolved since 1948 into a highly legalistic institution for establishing multilateral
trade rules and settling trade disputes. Keohane (1990, p. 731) defined multilateralism as “the
practice of coordinating national policies in groups of three or more states, through ad hoc
arrangements or by means of institutions.” Most nations are members of the multilateral trading
system.
One of the core principles 11 of the WTO system is predictability of trade and investment
rules through binding and transparency. Throughout WTO’s agreements, predictability stems from
legal binding rules. This is crucial for minimizing trade costs through removing unnecessary barriers
to trade. WTO secretariat’s (2007, p. 12) document on understanding the WTO best captures this
7
8
9
10
11
Hesitation to invest in infrastructure on the part of Indonesia’s mobile phone company, Greencom, which was granted a mobile
license in PNG, lends support to this argument.
Rodrik (1989) discussed the size of the reform as one signal.
However, the costs of overshooting policy may act against government’s real intentions.
International reputation, borrowing capacity, aid programs, and political and socioeconomic partnerships of countries are at
stake when reneging on international rules.
See WTO (2007) for a discussion of the WTO’s principles.
Telecommunication Regulatory Reforms and the Credibility Problem 67
predictability point as “to make countries’ trade rules as clear and public (‘transparent’) as possible.
Many WTO agreements require governments to disclose their policies publicly with the country or
by notifying to the WTO.” Hence, the predictability and transparency of information assist private
investors to adopt informed trade and investment decisions.
General Agreement on Trade in Services: Telecommunication Commitments
The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) was launched in 1995 with the objective of
establishing rules that ensure that WTO members’ domestic regulations do not discriminate against
other members—the most-favored nation (MFN) principle.12 The main discriminatory measures
prohibited by GATS are (i) limitations imposed upon the number of services;
(ii) limitations on the number of foreign nationals; (iii) limitations on the forms of legal entity (for
example, the requirement of a partnership with a local business in a particular sector); and
(iv) limitations on foreign equity participation (for example, a percentage participation requirement
for a particular form of commercial presence).
Trade in services are categorized according to four different modes of delivery:13 (i) crossborder services supplied from the territory of one member to the territory of another member (e.g.,
Digicel Tonga selling international connections to Telstra Australia); (ii) consumption of services
supplied in the territory of one member to the consumers of another (e.g., a Tongan national making
a telephone call in Port Moresby through Telikom PNG’s fixed-line network system); (iii) supply of
services by one member into the market of another member (e.g., establishment of a Digicel branch
in PNG); and (iv) temporary movement of natural persons (i.e., services supplied by nationals of one
member in the territory of another; for instance, a foreign national from Digicel’s Jamaican branch
posted as country manager to Digicel Tonga’s branch).
Negotiations toward liberalizing limiting measures among members were operationalized
through the use of the GATS Schedule of Commitments document. The document requires that
each member schedule (offer to commit) all limitation measures currently imposed upon service
sectors. These initial offers have been the basis for further rounds of negotiations since 1995.
The services schedule consists of four main sections. First, the horizontal commitments are
general limitations that apply to all sectors, including business and foreign investment regulations
requirements, any limitations on land tenure, and immigration requirements for the movement of
workers. Second, there are the specific vertical limitations applying to each sector (as regulated by
domestic regulations). These specific commitments produce the most valuable information in terms
of which sectors are included and what types of limitations are imposed upon each mode of delivery.
Third, the telecommunication reference paper, which is one of the important outcomes of the
telecommunication service negotiations completed in February 1997. The paper describes a set of
pro-competitive regulatory principles on competition conditions, including safeguard measures and
interconnection. The paper is legally binding once adopted by a WTO member. In practice, some
members have adopted the reference paper partially or wholly as part of their commitments in the
telecommunication sector. Fourth, the Article II MFN exemptions allow a member to not follow the
MFN principle under GATS. In principle, the GATS legal document provides for a 10-year time
frame. However, most WTO members have kept these limitations in place for more than 10 years.
12
13
Each government is required to accord, immediately and unconditionally, to services and service suppliers of any other member,
treatment no less favorable than what it accords to like services and service suppliers of any other country (WTO 2002, p. 287).
See Altinger and Enders (1996) and Egger and Lanz (2008) for detailed discussions of GATS.
68 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
The limitation measures are classified in the schedule under two categories. The first is
market access measures, which are limitations that discriminate between one foreign service supplier
and another. The second is national treatment limitations, measures that discriminate against foreign
service suppliers in favor of local service suppliers. Specific limitations for each mode of delivery
under the two categories are commonly classified into three main measures: (i) “None” indicates that
the member concerned does not impose any limitations restricted by GATS on that particular sector;
(ii) “Unbound” indicates that the member does not make any commitment to liberalization and is
free to impose any of the GATS-prohibited measures; and (iii) “Unbound except as indicated under
horizontal commitments” indicates that the member has committed subject to limitations indicated
under the horizontal commitments. Commonly, Mode 4 commitments (“movement of natural
persons”) are mostly unbound, as immigration law is a sovereign issue of member countries. In
addition, Mode 4 measures are only concerned with temporary movement of workers to other
markets, rather than migration.
Overall, the schedule of specific commitments had facilitated transparent communication of
member countries’ regulations on trade in services. The services schedules of most WTO members
are publicly available from the WTO, which gives business communities and governments an instant
regulatory window into each member’s rules and regulations on trade in services.
The next section analyzes the telecommunication commitments made by PNG and Tonga
through the schedule of specific commitments.
Papua New Guinea
PNG is one of three Pacific islands that became founding members of the WTO in 1995. PNG
submitted an offer on telecommunication services during the WTO’s 1996–1997
telecommunications negotiations (WTO 1997). It made commitments to not implement any
domestic policy measures that may impose limitations on foreign participants to mobile and fixed
telephony (Table 4.1).
However, the commitments contained four important conditions. First, the normal traderelated rules and regulations of the country relevant to any business entity will be imposed on any
foreign operator. Second, under the commercial presence of foreign investors, all telecommunication
services were subjected to a 5-year (1997–2002) monopoly for national operator Telikom. 14 PNG
also committed not to put in place prohibited restrictions 15 discriminating between foreign and local
service providers (Mode 3, National Treatment). Third, foreign operators must deliver
telecommunication services across the border into PNG through Telekom PNG’s network. Fourth,
PNG subscribed to the telecommunication reference paper outlining international best practice
telecommunication regulatory principles. 16
14
15
16
The WTO multilateral negotiations on telecommunication services began in 1997. As first offers, several members submitted
offers that reflected the status quo (monopoly). However, it was seen as a positive move toward liberalization.
Article XVI of GATS lists six prohibited market access restrictions including limitations on (i) numbers of suppliers, total value
of transaction of assets, total number of service operations, and total number of people; (ii) legal restrictions on type of joint
venture; and (iii) limitations on the participation of foreign capital.
Refer to the discussion on GATS for further information.
Telecommunication Regulatory Reforms and the Credibility Problem 69
Table 4.1: GATS Schedule of Commitments—Voice Telephone and
Digital Cellular Services, Papua New Guinea
Modes of Supply
(1) Cross-border supply
(2) Consumption abroad
(3) Commercial presence
(4) Presence of natural persons
National Treatment
Limitationsb
Sector or Subsector
I. Horizontal Commitments
Market Access Limitationsa
All Sectors Included in this
Schedule
(3) Normal government approval
and registration is required for all
foreign investors, based on several
criteria.
(3) Companies incorporated
outside PNG must register the
company’s name with the
Investment Promotion Authority in
PNG.
(3) Foreign nationals and foreignowned companies may not
purchase land but may lease land.
(3) Foreign
employees are
required to provide
on-the-job training to
local employees.
(1) Only through the network of
Telikom.
(2) Alternative calling or call backs
are not allowed.
(3) All telecommunication services
are subjected to a 5-year
exclusivity period (1997–2002) to
PNG Telikom as the monopoly
service provider.
(1) None
Additional
Commitments
II. Specific Commitments
Communication Services
x Telecommunication
services
x Voice telephone
services
(2) None
PNG subscribes to
the regulatory
principles annexed
to this schedule.
(3) None
The issuance of additional
operating licenses and their terms
and conditions will be considered
and announced at least 2 years
prior to the end of the exclusivity
period.
x Digital cellular services
x Mobile data services
Telikom is designated as signatory
to the INTELSAT Operating
Agreement.
(3) Under the Articles of
Association and Memorandum of
Articles of Telikom, Telikom
reserves the right to set up
subsidiary companies in business
ventures on particular services of
telecommunications.
(4) Unbound except as indicated in
the horizontal section.
(4) Unbound except
as indicated in the
horizontal section.
GATS = General Agreement on Trade in Services.
a
Restrictive measures between foreign service suppliers.
b
Restrictive measures against foreign service suppliers.
Sources: Adapted from World Trade Organization 1997, GATS/SC/118/Suppl.1; and World Trade Organization 1995,
GATS/SC/118.
70 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Tonga
Tonga is one of three Pacific islands countries that applied for WTO membership after 1995. Tonga
undertook bilateral service negotiations with members of the WTO Working Party prior to
accession. The process was lengthy, costly, and complex. Tonga’s accession took place at the WTO
Ministerial Meeting held in Hong Kong, China, in December 2005.17 Table 4.2 outlines the
telephone and mobile service commitments made by Tonga.
Tonga also made commitments on fixed-line telephone and mobile services. Three issues are
worthy of note. First, the inclusion of taxation measures committed for nondiscriminatory treatment
across all service sectors is rare in WTO members’ service schedules. In addition, the normal
requirements of the investment regulations apply to foreign and domestic providers alike. Tonga also
notified members through its schedule of the prohibition on the acquisition of land except through
leasing arrangements. There were also certain categories of workers to which Tonga committed not
to apply discriminatory measures between non-residents of different members. Second, Tonga
adopted the telecommunication reference paper, which detailed key international best practice
regulatory principles on telecommunications. Third, Tonga notified members via its schedule that
some service subsidies may be made available only to Tongan citizens.
Overall, both PNG and Tonga committed to liberalize fixed-line telephones and mobile
services. 18 Both countries committed to liberalize, without limitations, Mode 3 commercial presence
(foreign direct investment). Furthermore, both adopted the telecommunication reference paper
emphasizing commitments to pro-competitive practices.
17
18
Tonga’s accession package was submitted to the General Council and accepted by both parties (WTO and Tonga) in the Hong
Kong, China Ministerial Meeting in December 2005 subject to ratification before 31 July 2006. However, the ratification was
delayed due to domestic political and economic challenges and was eventually submitted and accepted by the WTO on 27 June
2007.
Although, as the schedules show, both adopted transition periods for the monopolies’ exclusivity to end.
Telecommunication Regulatory Reforms and the Credibility Problem 71
Table 4.2: Schedule of Commitments—Voice Telephone and Digital Cellular Services, Tonga
Modes of Supply
(1) Cross-border supply
(2) Consumption abroad
(3) Commercial presence
(4) Presence of natural persons
Sector or Subsector
Market Access Limitationsa
National Treatment Limitationsb
Additional
Commitments
I. Horizontal Commitments
All Sectors Included in
this Schedule
x Taxation measures
All Sectors Included in
this Schedule
(1) None
(2) None
(3) None
(4) Unbound
(4) Unbound except for
measures affecting the entry
and temporary stay of nationals
of another member who fall
into the categories listed
below:
x
x
x
x
x
x
salespersons
intra-corporate transferees
managers
executives
specialists
personnel engaged in
establishment
(1) None
(2) None
(3) None
(4) Unbound
(1), (2), and (3)
Unbound with regard to
subsidies
Government approval, under
the Foreign Investment Act, is
required for foreign investors
to invest into the kingdom.
The Tongan Constitution
prohibits the sale of land to
foreigners. Foreigners can only
attain land through leasing,
with the right to lease land for
up to 99 years as well as
sublease.
(4) Unbound except for
measures listed under market
access
Subsidies available to natural
persons may be limited to
Tongan citizens
II. Specific Commitments
Communication
Services
x Telecommunication
services
(1) None as of 1 January 2008
(2) None as of 1 January 2008
(3) None as of 1 January 2008
(4) Unbound except as
indicated under horizontal
commitments
x Voice telephone
services (7521)
x Others
a
(1) None as of 1 January 2008
(2) None as of 1 January 2008
(3) None as of 1 January 2008
(4) Unbound except as
indicated under horizontal
commitments
(1) None
(2) None
Tonga subscribes
to the principles
set forth in the
Reference Paper.
(3) None
(4) Unbound except as
indicated under horizontal
commitments
(1) None
(2) None
(3) None
(4) Unbound except as
indicated under horizontal
commitments
Tonga subscribes
to the principles
set forth in the
Reference Paper.
Restrictive measures between foreign service suppliers.
Restrictive measures against foreign service suppliers.
Source: Adapted from World Trade Organization Document - WT/ACC/TON/17/Add.2; and WT/MIN(05)/4/Add.2, 2 December
2005.
b
72 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
4. Credibility Problems in Telecommunication
Regulatory Reform
This section draws upon evidence of regulatory changes during the telecommunication reform
process in PNG and Tonga. As demonstrated, the early regulatory changes undermined the
credibility of the reform process. Most importantly, it is argued that the WTO multilateral
commitments provided certainty to the reform processes, whereas domestic (and bilateral) restraints
provided limited or no certainty. 19
Papua New Guinea
Pre-Reform Policies (December 2005–March 2007)
Since the December 2005 National Executive Council (NEC) decision to introduce mobile
competition, the regulatory reforms saw several policies and pieces of legislation drafted, amended, or
repealed. Prior to introduction of mobile services, only two pieces of information and
communication technology (ICT) legislation had been implemented. The first was a communication
policy drafted as a result of a communication policy seminar in 1978. In 1992, the Department of
Communication and Information (DCI) was instructed to begin formulating a coherent national
ICT policy (DCI 2008a, pp. 2–3), which resulted in the National Policy on Information and
Communication of Papua New Guinea passed in 1994. The 1994 ICT policy was more
comprehensive in setting out general policy guidelines on defining ownership, access, and content. It
also emphasized the role of the state-owned telecommunication operator in providing access to rural
communities and extending the network to complement economic development. Privatization plans
for the state-owned incumbent operator were clearly stated whereas the introduction of competition
was not mentioned. A 1999 WTO secretariat report (1999, p. 121) confirmed this position by
stating that the government’s policy intention “is to gradually privatize Telikom PNG... by divesting
up to 49% of ownership.”
A gradual policy shift toward liberalization of telecommunication services began when three
key pieces of legislation were passed in 1996. The three bills created three legal entities: Telikom, as
the exclusive monopoly provider of all telecommunication services; the Independent Consumer and
Competition Commission (ICCC) as the economic and social regulator; and Papua New Guinea
Radiocommunications and Telecommunications Technical Authority (PANGTEL), to act as the
technical authority for telecommunications services. Internet services were introduced in 1997, with
five internet service providers (Kelegai and Middleton n.d., p. 3) using the Telikom network and
international gateways. Most importantly, PNG, as a founding member of the WTO, participated in
the telecommunication service negotiations, which were completed in 1997.
Telikom continued to be the sole provider of all telecommunication services. Through a
regulatory contract with ICCC, the state-owned incumbent telecommunication operator was granted
another 5-year monopoly, from 2002 to 17 October 2007. 20 The capacity of Telikom to serve rural
and isolated communities was severely constrained, however. The acting secretary for PNG’s
Department of State Enterprise and Information at the time, Iduhu Henao (2004, pp. 2–3),
outlined the challenges to the development of telecommunication services, which basically pointed to
the difficult geographic terrain, the largely rural population, and the diversity of language and culture
19
20
Members’ WTO commitments and obligations are usually triggered only when another member raises concerns in the WTO.
On fixed-line service, mobile phone service, and international gateway.
Telecommunication Regulatory Reforms and the Credibility Problem 73
as the fundamental deterrents to network deployment. One telecommunication policy expert
interviewed in Port Moresby stated that Telikom’s operation “as a monopoly for the last 52 years was
inefficient with poor infrastructure. It is a company run by engineers. It is not a company that is run
by people with business mentality in terms of marketing, accounting, quality of services, innovations,
and so on…”.
But geography and the largely rural population were not the main reasons for Telikom’s
underperformance. When Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare was elected Prime Minister in 2002, his
administration set out to rehabilitate Telikom. Poor management was seen as one of the major
contributors to inefficiencies. Somare reported to Parliament in 2005 that Telikom at one time had
six managing directors over an 11-month period (Office of the Prime Minister 2005). The
government stabilized the management structure and hired experts to assist in providing strategic
direction to the chairman and the board. The results were a series of positive business initiatives,
including appointment of international firms to formulate strategic policies and further network
expansion of fixed-line services.
The first major competition policy development was reached in December 2005 when an
NEC decision was made on the introduction of competition in mobile services. The main objective
of the national ICT policy approved in 2005 was for the use of telecommunications for economic
development in PNG. The government stated in the 2005 NEC decision a preference to establish
electronic connectivity for disseminating information to the general public and as a means of
reaching out to the public and outside world (e-government, e-commerce, and e-education).
Telikom’s infrastructure through which these services were to be provided was limited and in need of
major modernization. Therefore, rehabilitation of Telikom was stated to be one of the government’s
priorities. However, according to the same NEC decision, competition was to be introduced in the
mobile service sector. A telecommunications policy expert in Port Moresby argued that
To be able to rehabilitate Telikom PNG, they need a good stream of revenue and
also need to attract finance for its developmental programs. Hence, the argument
therefore was that, we can’t do that if we have an inefficient Telikom company
competing with an efficient multinational foreign telecom operator. Telikom argued
that while it is trying to establish its network to the whole of the country, they
cannot afford for a mobile company to come in and “cherry pick” on the most
profitable areas (Port Moresby, Lae, Mt. Hagen, and Kakapu). This meant that
Telikom would have to cross-subsidize21 the rates in nonprofitable areas, meaning
that its tariff rates will be more expensive than any other operator that operates in the
profitable areas only.
Two issues relating to Telikom’s operations arise from this discussion. First, Telikom has
had exclusive monopoly rights for more than 50 years. There have been no incentives for the
incumbent operator to develop and invest in infrastructure services during this time. Second, when
the incentive presented itself—competition—Telikom was inadequately prepared. Telikom’s
inability to operate effectively in a competitive market may have been the issue that drove much of
the political interference in the reform program, which led to regulatory uncertainty in 2007 and
2008.
A telecommunication policy expert in Port Moresby described Telikom’s pre-competition
era as follows:
21
As of July 2009, universal service coverage and funding policies had not been implemented.
74 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
As is the case with many state owned entities, the infrastructure had deteriorated over
the years as a result of ineffective management, constant political interference, tariffs
not being cost-reflective, massive underinvestment and lack of incentives to improve
services or roll out network. The infrastructure was outdated, unreliable, and
network coverage was low.
The low level of fixed-line and mobile phone subscribers per 100 people in PNG is captured
in Figure 4.1 in a comparison with Tonga and the average of low- and middle-income countries as
categorized by the World Bank.
However, network deployment and coverage in PNG has improved significantly since
Digicel PNG entered the mobile phone market in July 2007. Figure 4.2 shows the association
between key policy changes and mobile phone subscriptions per 100 people for PNG and Tonga.
Before competition policies were introduced, mobile phone subscriptions were relatively low in both
Pacific countries and there were significant increases shortly after competition policies were
announced (or actual competition began).
Figure 4.1: Total Fixed-Line and Mobile Subscribers per 100 People—
Papua New Guinea and Tonga
Per 100 people
100
10
Low and middle income
Papua New Guinea
0.1
Year
Sources: World Bank, World Development Indicators 2009; and World Trade Organization online sources.
Tonga
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
1991
1990
1989
1988
1
Telecommunication Regulatory Reforms and the Credibility Problem 75
Figure 4.2: Total Mobile Subscriptions per 100 People—
Papua New Guinea and Tonga
2007
National Executive Council
257/2005 decision for mobile
competition in PNG
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
TonFon enters the mobile
service market—Tonga
Year
2001
2000
1999
PNG submits WTO
telecommunications
offers
1998
1997
Tonga’s WTO accession
process begins
1996
1995
0.01
Tonga
Papua New Guinea
0.1
1
10
100
Per 100 people
Sources: World Bank, World Development Indicators 2009; and World Trade Organization (WTO) online sources.
Three key statements in the December 2005 NEC decision are worth mentioning. First,
through its regulatory contract with ICCC, Telikom was to agree to terminate its mobile phone
monopoly by 31 March 2006. Second, ICCC was mandated to select, via public tender, two new
licensees to compete with Telikom’s B-Mobile. Third, March 2007 was the date set for open
competition in mobile services. Following the government’s decision to introduce competition,
ICCC released a press statement in January 2006 (ICCC 2006, pp. 1–2) outlining the processes it
would follow to fulfill its obligations.
The media release from the Office of the Commissioner, ICCC, on 18 January 2006
outlined four main steps. First, the public tender process would begin on 7 March and submissions
would close in May 2006. Second, assessment of the applications would be undertaken by ICCC and
the two new mobile providers announced by mid-October 2006. (Contrary to the announced
timeline, the licensees were announced earlier in September 2006.) Third, construction of network
infrastructure for the two new mobile entrants was tentatively scheduled for December 2006.
76 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Fourth, licenses would be issued (these were issued on 27 March 2007). Licenses were issued to
Digicel PNG and Greencom. Digicel PNG began operations on 17 July 2007, while Greencom has
not yet begun operations.
ICCC was also required to consult with Telikom on procedures to terminate its monopoly
over mobile services by end of March 2006. ICCC sought Telikom’s approval in early January and
received consent from Telikom via a letter on 20 February 2006. In surrendering its exclusivity
rights, Telikom required ICCC to fulfill several conditions. ICCC claimed that these were addressed
and amended the contract agreement between Telikom and ICCC to reflect the termination of
exclusive rights over mobile services.
However, in September 2006, Telikom claimed that the conditions were not fulfilled and
that it did not consent to the release of its monopoly rights (ICCC 2007b, p. 1). Importantly, the
government released a national ICT policy in the same month that generally reneged on the
December 2005 NEC decision for liberalization of mobile services. Against Telikom and
government opposition, ICCC kept to its timeline and announced the two new licensees. ICCC’s
position on the government’s September 2006 ICT policy is best captured by its commissioner and
chief executive officer (CEO), Thomas Abe, who said that “it is the prerogative of the Government
to make and change policies but this is a situation where Government wanted the game to be replayed when the full time whistle had already gone” (ICCC 2007b, p. 2). The government
maintained that “refinements” to the policy were due to the need for Telikom to rehabilitate to cope
with a more competitive environment. On the other hand, ICCC’s interpretation was that the effects
of any new policy must only come after March 2007, when the old policy ended. In addition, legal
advice to ICCC suggested that the licenses issued in March 2007 could not be legally challenged just
because of a sudden government policy change (ICCC 2007b, p. 2).
Three public entities pressured ICCC to stall the mobile liberalization program (Abe 2007a,
2007b). First, Telikom commenced three separate judicial proceedings to challenge ICCC actions:
one through an appeal panel and the other two through the court system. 22 However, the appeal
panel ruled in favor of ICCC, and the first court decision dismissed Telikom’s claim for abuse of
process (Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea 2008, p. 1). Telikom voluntarily discontinued the
second court proceeding.
Second, as noted in a public speech by ICCC Commissioner Abe, the Independent Public
Business Commission (IPBC)—the sole shareholder of Telikom—advocated a position that would
have prevented the introduction of mobile competition from March 2007, or at all (Abe 2007a, p.
4). 23
Third, the minister responsible for the Department of Public Enterprises, Information and
Development Co-operation (DPEIDC), Arthur Somare, pushed for policy reversal to allow time for
Telikom’s capacity to be rehabilitated so that it could compete effectively. Alfredo Henandez of the
National’s online edition reported that “the order to cancel the telco’s [Digicel’s] license to operate in
PNG came from the Prime Minister’s son, Arthur Somare, Minister of Public Enterprise,
Information and Development” (e-National undated). ICCC’s Commissioner, Thomas Abe, stated
in his press release of 30 July 2007 that “Minister Arthur Somare has also been trying for over a year
22
23
Authorized by the Telecommunications Act.
IPBC is a 100% state-owned statutory corporation. The major objective of IPBC is to hold the majority of state-owned
commercial assets in trust and to manage those assets prudently to improve commercial performance and economic
development. For further information, visit IPBC website: www.ipbc.com.pg/index.html
Telecommunication Regulatory Reforms and the Credibility Problem 77
to stop ICCC and PANGTEL from giving effect to this [December 2005 NEC decision]
Government Policy” (ICCC 2007b, p. 2).
A telecommunication expert in Port Moresby recalled the ICT task force’s frequent tense
negotiations over ICT policy. 24 While 10 members of the task force accepted that competition
should continue, two members consistently argued to stop competition. One was Minister Somare’s
DPEIDC and the other was IBPC, also within his portfolio.
Minister Somare’s objection to ICCC granting licenses for competition in the mobile sector
was given in Parliament, where he claimed that “ICCC has failed to perform its functions under
section 19 of the Telecommunications Act, by not implementing ICT Policy” (Abe 2007b, p. 5). 25
This statement refers to the September 2007 ICT policy, which stated that Digicel should not be
granted a license for immediate competition but rather there should be a staged competition.
However, the license that ICCC granted in March 2007 was based on the December 2005 NEC
decision, which the government should have amended well before Digicel began to establish its
infrastructure network in September 2006. Although there was an ICT policy that was passed (but
not implemented) in September 2006, coinciding with the announcement of the result of the tender
process, it was rather late as ICCC had followed its public tender process mapped out from January
2006, soon after the December 2005 NEC decision.
DPEIDC drafted an ICT policy in September 2006 to reflect its position on competition
and the rehabilitation of Telikom. The September 2006 ICT policy contained two fundamental
regulatory departures from the December 2005 NEC policy. The first was the government‘s
recognition of the need to rehabilitate and upgrade Telikom’s network capabilities, strengthening its
ability to compete. It was stated that 500 million kina (K) to K1.4 billion would be required over 5
years to rehabilitate the network (DPEIDC 2006, p. 23). In particular, the rehabilitation program
should involve internal restructuring of Telikom to maintain its exclusive rights to network
infrastructure services (NETCO) while at the same time “addressing” the competition elements of
the 2005 NEC decision through service companies (SERVCOs). 26 Second, it was anticipated that
any new mobile entrants would be allowed to apply for a SERVCO license to operate in the mobile
services but must use the infrastructure NETCO provides. It was recommended that the government
“postpone or cancel [the licenses for Digicel and Greencom] for 18 to 24 months” (DPEIDC 2006,
p. 25).
Two reasons for the policy reversal were put forward in the September 2006 ICT policy.
First, that Telikom’s network was technically incapable of interconnecting to another carrier’s
network and therefore customers of one carrier would not be able to call customers of another
carrier. Digicel requested interconnection with Telikom 3 months before its official launch in May
2007 (Joku 2008). 27 Digicel only began testing interconnection with Telikom on 31 January 2008
and it was another 6 months before nationwide connection in July 2008. Much of the delay had
been focused on the technical capacity of Telikom to allow interconnection (Digicel media release,
30 January 2008). Also, there was a numbering plan in Telikom’s network that limited subscribers to
400,000 numbers.
24
25
26
27
The ICT task force was established following a NEC decision in 2006 to develop new ICT policies with the main purpose of
delaying or stopping competition in the mobile sector to allow for the rehabilitation of Telikom (fieldwork interview, 13
September 2008).
Section 19–Functions and Powers of the Commission.
Network services include the international gateway and fixed-line and mobile service infrastructure.
ICCC issued the Telecommunications Interconnection Code of Practice to facilitate interconnection negotiations earlier on 17
November 2006.
78 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Second, the September 2006 ICT policy claimed that “ICCC has both a regulatory
function under the ICCC Act (2002) and the regulatory authority to issue and revoke licenses under
the Telecommunications Act (1996)... [which] is a conflict of interest and ought not be allowed to
subsist” (DPEIDC 2006, p. 32). To highlight the point, the September ICT policy stated that ICCC
was to “move to issue mobile licences ahead of schedule in the knowledge that the National
Executive Council is reviewing ‘Government Policy’ as defined by the Telecommunications Act
(1996) and therefore, may put it beyond the power of the Commission to issue the mobile licenses in
accordance with section 57 (2) of that Act” (DPEIDC 2006, p. 32). The ICT policy recommended
that ICCC’s power to issue and revoke licenses be returned to a committee comprised of
representatives from PANGTEL and ICCC, chaired by a former chief justice. This recommendation
would effectively return licensing power from an independent entity back to government control. 28
The claim of “bringing forward” the ending of Telikom’s monopoly over mobile services
deserves further discussion. Under the regulatory contract ICCC and Telikom agreed to in 2002,
Telikom was given an exclusive license until October 2007. However, the December 2005 NEC
decision ruled that introduction of mobile service competition should begin in March 2007. This
effectively hastened the end to Telikom’s exclusive rights over mobile service by about 8 months.
Both of these decisions were formulated and approved by government. A telecommunication policy
expert in Port Moresby stated that “the Chief Executive Officer of IPBC, Glen Blake, and the
Commissioner of ICCC, Thomas Abe, were called by government and were told to implement this
decision [December 2005 NEC Decision].”
The September 2006 national ICT policy was never implemented. No publicly accessible
document is available to shed light on why it was never implemented, although its timing does
provide hints about the purpose of the policy. The ICT policy was finalized at the same time that
ICCC announced the winners of the public tender process for the introduction of two new mobile
service providers. Since ICCC pressed on with the announcement and the timeline set for March
2007 was based on the December 2005 NEC decision, the usefulness of the September 2006 ICT
policy diminished, as it clearly contradicted earlier policy. There is also evidence that this policy
document was not made publicly accessible, as shown by the lack of mention in either the
government’s later policy documents or the regulator’s press releases. 29
In March 2007, Digicel launched several mobile stations. In accordance with its legislative
mandate, PANGTEL issued Digicel a spectrum license. However, several days later it withdrew the
licenses, stating “amended ICT policy” as the reason for withdrawal. The e-National online (The
National, 25 July 2007) reported that “[Arthur] Somare notified PANGTEL of the ‘amended’
government Information Communications.” PANGTEL Acting Director General Charles Punaha
was also reported as saying that under the amended ICT policy, access to spectrum would be
restricted to NETCO, the proposed new operator of all telecommunication infrastructure. Digicel
obtained a court order shortly afterward that overrode PANGTEL’s action and allowed Digicel to
operate.
28
29
The latest ICT policy (March 2009) indicates that the power over issuing and revoking licenses is granted to a new authority,
National Information and Communication Technology Authority, which is primarily made up of PANGTEL officials and
assets.
The September 2006 ICT policy may be confused with NEC Decision 188/2007 that resulted in a comprehensive ICT policy
that was never implemented. The characteristics of NEC 188/2007 are identical to the mysterious September 2006 ICT policy.
Interestingly, it was another national ICT policy (February 2008) that made this statement. It is also useful to note that in 2007
there were two new ICT policies passed by government that were implemented.
Telecommunication Regulatory Reforms and the Credibility Problem 79
This section has shown how lobbying pressure to reverse telecommunication liberalization
policy between December 2005 and when Digicel commenced operations in early 2007 severely
interfered with the regulator’s (ICCC) independence. The next section looks at the impact of
lobbying pressure since that time.
Post-Reform Policies (March 2007–August 2009)
The government reviewed ICT policy yet again in early 2007. A telecommunication blueprint was
developed in May 2007, which was the basis for the May 2007 national ICT policy. The May 2007
ICT policy generally reflected the recommendations of the September 2006 ICT policy in three
crucial regulatory areas. First, there was a recommendation for the adoption of the
“NETCO/SERVCO model” in which Telikom retains an indefinite monopoly over NETCO
infrastructure, whereas SERVCO will be opened for new licenses. Second, competition (SERVCO
services) will only commence after 1 June 2008. Third, government, through DPEIDC, establishes
new committees to oversee licensing issues and the overall ICT policy. The authority of ICCC to
issue and revoke licenses will be “removed and will rest with the Minister for the DPEIDC”
(DPEIDC 2007, p. 12).
The May 2007 ICT policy was never implemented due to pressure from key stakeholders,
including Digicel.
Multilateral Policy Restraints
Digicel PNG was methodical but diplomatic in how it dealt with the policy uncertainties. Digicel
pressured the government through two main channels. First, Digicel negotiated directly with the
government on ensuring security for its investment. The Pacific Islands Broadcasting Association on
26 July 2007 reported that Digicel Group Board Director Seamus Lynch had met with the Prime
Minister in early March (2007) and was assured that Digicel’s investment and license to operate in
PNG were protected. Digicel continued to engage in regulatory dialogue with Telikom, ICCC, and
PANGTEL, and the government to ensure that its initial license, based on the December 2005 NEC
decision, was protected. When PANGTEL withdrew Digicel’s spectrum license in March 2007, Mr.
Lynch was quoted on Digicel’s website (25 July 2007) as saying that “Digicel obtained a National
Court injunction to prevent PANGTEL from doing so and that PANGTEL acted illegally... the
actions of PANGTEL yesterday appear to be very politically motivated.”
Second, as an Irish investment, Digicel protected its investment through government-togovernment dialogue channels between the Irish and PNG governments. The Irish ambassador to
Australia and PNG, His Excellency Mairtin O’Fainin, reportedly flew to Port Moresby to talk with
PNG government officials following the government’s moves to revoke Digicel’s Spectrum license
(Island Business 2007). The ambassador was reported as saying that he was assured by PNG officials
of their government’s continued commitment to competition in the telecommunication sector.
Digicel’s main investment concerns up to the May 2007 ICT policy were basically twofold.
The first was the withdrawal of Digicel’s spectrum license by PANGTEL in March 2007. The
second concern was the NETCO “model” in which Telikom controlled the international gateway.
Digicel PNG CEO Kevin O’Sullivan was reported as saying that “with only one gateway operating,
people will experience higher calling rates, lower quality of calls due to network congestion as well as
limited international roaming services” (Digicel in the Media 2008). He also added that “to remove
Digicel’s international gateway would be a step backward from the current open market approach.
80 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
The people have tasted the benefits of competition and have the right to continue to enjoy those
benefits—lower prices, better quality, increased coverage and introduction of new services.”
There is evidence that Digicel may have exploited other international legal avenues for the
protection of its investments in PNG, including invoking PNG’s WTO commitments on
telecommunication reform. A member of the Manufacturers Council of PNG 30 said that
There was a monopoly for telecommunications when we negotiated the WTO
telecommunications commitment. It had a lapse time of 5 years (2002). The sensible
thing was to make an application for extension and they [PNG government] would
have got it. They did not do it. What has happened now, we got a letter from the
EU [European Union] notifying us of their interest in our WTO commitments in
September 2008. The commitment has lapsed and it was triggered by a “private
sector” of course.
Thus, a multilateral commitment pressured government to refrain from policy reversals on
telecommunication reform.
Two crucial aspects of the telecommunication reform strengthen the case for this point.
First, the latest ICT policy released in March 2009 stated that the model proposed was consistent
with PNG’s WTO obligations (DIC 2009, p. 22). 31 This statement indicates that the government
ensured that its ICT policy is compatible with PNG’s WTO commitments. The statements referring
to WTO obligations since the February 2008 national ICT policy may not have occurred by
accident. Prior to this, the September 2007 ICT policy had announced that competition will
continue but all mobile operators must use Telikom’s international gateway. It was during this time
that the Irish ambassador to Australia and PNG flew to Port Moresby and also when the PNG
government received the EU letter referring to PNG’s WTO commitments.
Second, the September 2007 ICT policy directed a phased liberalization in which Telikom
retained its monopoly over the international gateways in Phase 1. The two ICT policies in 2008
adopted similar frameworks. There was no time frame indicated in the 2008 ICT policies as to when
Phase 2 would begin. However, the March 2009 ICT policy came up with a clear time frame and set
milestones to be achieved. More interestingly, the international gateway was tentatively scheduled to
be liberalized by October 2009, or as soon as practical thereafter. Throughout the 2007–2009 ICT
policies, the government stated its commitments to competition—staged competition, that is.
Several scenarios based on the September 2007 ICT policy (and subsequent ICT policies)
can be challenged via the WTO legal dispute system. Depending on the impact of the policy on
foreign operators, several cases can be developed. The international gateway issue is a case in point. It
is not clear whether the telecommunication license granted by ICCC to Digicel in March 2007
included the right to operate its own international gateway. Based on the press releases, media
dialogue, and interviews conducted by the author, ICCC and the government interpreted the
international gateway right differently. Digicel understood that its license to operate in PNG
included the right to operate its own international gateway. Digical PNG CEO Sullivan was quoted
on Digicel’s website (26 March 2008) as saying, “with only one gateway operating [Telikom’s
30
31
This person has been heavily involved in the PNG government’s WTO and regional trade agreement negotiations over the past
20 years.
The national ICT policies released in February and April 2008 also mentioned the importance of competition in the
telecommunication sector and that “the WTO will put PNG under pressure to open its telecommunications sector to
competition.”
Telecommunication Regulatory Reforms and the Credibility Problem 81
gateway], people will experience higher calling rates... to remove Digicel’s international gateway
would be a step backward from the current open market approach.” A telecommunication policy
expert in Port Moresby stated that
Clause 2.4 of the Digicel license requires that Digicel use an international gateway
operated by a general carrier, unless the ICCC consents to Digicel using its own or
another gateway. The ICCC gave its temporary consent to Digicel under the license
to carry international communications using its own international gateway until
connection to the Telikom PNG [international] gateway was achieved.
On the other hand, the government’s interpretation was that it did not grant international
gateway rights to Digicel. A government official in Port Moresby stated that
It was never intended under the [December] 2005 mobile competition policy that
these rights [international gateway] or other general carrier reserved rights would be
granted to the new mobile carriers. Those rights were to remain with Telkom PNG
at least until October 2007 and any subsequent change was to be a matter of
government policy.
The government’s interpretation is backed by section 45 (Rights to reserve line links and
ancillary facilities) and section 46 (Supply of telecommunications services by satellite based facilities
or microwave facilities) of the Telecommunications Act 1996. These two provisions state that no
operator other than the general carrier holds the right to operate a “reserve link within Papua New
Guinea and a place outside Papua New Guinea.” Section 46 states the international linkage rights of
a general carrier through satellites or microwave facilities.
The current ICT policy (March 2009) states that the operation of international gateways
(since September 2007) is the exclusive right of Telikom. The most likely scenario for Digicel was to
request the Irish government (or the EU, of which Ireland is a member) to challenge PNG’s actions
in the WTO on three potential derogation scenarios. 32 First, as a matter of principle, any foreign
supplier that deems itself adversely affected by the measures of a host government can request its
home country authorities to raise the issue with that government through the WTO. 33 Hence,
depending on the nature of the measure in question, the governments concerned can discuss
solutions or, if a deadlock is reached, raise it at the WTO’s dispute settlement body.
Second, under PNG’s WTO telecommunication commitments, Telikom’s monopoly was
scheduled to end in 5 years, in 2002. One potential interpretation is that there is a case for market
liberalization after that end date. Hence, under this scenario, PNG’s telecommunication sector
should have been liberalized in 2002.
One important issue needs to be considered under this scenario. PNG did not request an
extension in 2002 and this option could have been exploited. In PNG’s case, 5 years were not
sufficient to allow telecommunication reform, particularly, the rehabilitation of Telikom. An
ambitious reform program with a short, fixed timetable increases the risks of future policy
interference. A similar problem occurred in Albania in 2003. It applied for a waiver in the WTO and
was granted one when the privatization of its telecom monopoly, Albtelecom, ran into difficulties.
The waiver postponed the commitment’s implementation date by 1 year (Adlung 2007, pp. 254–
32
33
The PNG government tentatively scheduled liberalization of the international gateway by October 2009.
Many thanks to Rudolf Adlung for clarifying this point.
82 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
255). Similarly, Tonga through its accession process, requested a waiver on the ratification deadline
for its WTO commitments (including telecommunication commitments) due to economic and
political difficulties in July 2006. It was granted a 1-year waiver, with ratification to take place on
July 2007. The 12-month delay also pushed back the implementation of Tonga’s commitments on
telecommunication liberalization.
Third, in its WTO telecommunication commitments, PNG scheduled no limitations
discriminating between foreign and local services suppliers. The granting of exclusive rights over the
international gateway to Telikom may be deemed a violation of its 1997 telecommunication
commitments. If PNG develops a case to justify the potential derogation, legal disputes can be
formally established in which financial and human resources costs may be issues.
Domestic Restraints
Local business communities in PNG also put pressure on the government. Island Business’s Dionsia
Tabureguci (2008) reported that public pressure resulted in government scrapping the controversial
NETCO/SERVCO competition model. Port Moresby Chamber of Commerce General Manager
David Conn was quoted in Island Business Online (2008) as saying that they were unhappy because
government did not consult with them on the policy. He also criticized the government and
Telikom for failing to attend a public workshop held in January 2008, attended by a wide spectrum
of stakeholders.
There was also limited political pressure from within government as “there was much
political lobbying going on between those who supported competition and those who opposed it.” A
telecommunication policy expert in Port Moresby stated that, “eventually, an ICT policy [May 2007
ICT Policy] was adopted by the PNG government, which was not agreed to by the majority of the
task force, but held the views of the minority who thought that competition would be detrimental
for Telikom PNG.”
ICCC also had difficulties with the government’s May 2007 ICT policy. ICCC
Commissioner Abe, in a press statement on 30 July 2007, said that “ICCC was informed by
Minister Somare at the end of June 2007 that, in a decision taken on the 21 June during the election
period, the government had reversed its previous policy of introducing mobile competition, and
wanted the ICCC to revoke the licenses issued to Digicel... ICCC sought legal advice... and has been
advised that the licenses already issued to Digicel are proper and valid, and cannot now be legally
canceled because of a change in government policy” (Abe 2007b).
Since ICCC’s involvement with the reform program in December 2005, its position had
been to act as the independent regulator for telecommunication services (without any political
interference) and provide competition in the mobile service sector through granting of a license to
Digicel. This position was reflected in several public statements by Commissioner Abe in 2007 and
2008. (Abe 2006, 2007a, 2007b). The provision of ICCC’s functions in accordance with its
legislation was effective during the reform program on one key regulatory aspect—independence.
Maintaining independence amid commercial and political interference was achieved by ICCC,
although it may have contributed to the later loss of its power to grant and revoke
telecommunication licenses.34
34
The latest ICT policy (March 2009) stated that a new regulator, National Information and Communication Technology
Authority (NICTA), would be established and that all powers to grant and revoke licenses would be moved from ICCC to the
new regulator. Although not clear at this stage, the new regulator is likely to be heavily influenced by government with respect
to members of the board and funds.
Telecommunication Regulatory Reforms and the Credibility Problem 83
Tonga
Tonga’s successful introduction of mobile phone competition in late 2002 was swiftly backed by a
comprehensive reform program. Telecommunication competition began when Tonfon entered the
mobile phone market as the second provider in July 2003. During that time, Tonga was negotiating
its service commitments as part of its accession to the WTO. As a result, Tonga’s domestic and
multilateral policies were aligned and locked in Tonga’s telecommunication reform intentions.
Tonga finalized its WTO accession package in December 2005. In November 2007,
Digicel entered Tonga’s market via acquisition of Tonfon. Digicel Tonga has been providing mobile
phone services since May 2008. Since that time the telecommunication sector has realized improved
sector performance and reduced prices through intense competition. The motive behind the selling
of Tonfon, according to the Shoreline Group, was “part of the program for His Majesty to withdraw
from commercial interests in Tonga” (Tonga-Now 2007). 35
Since the expiry in 1999 of the franchise agreement between Tonga government and British
Cable & Wireless, the provider of international services in Tonga, 36 the government’s intention of
reforming the sector was made clear in the swift move to draft and pass the Communications Act
2000. The motive behind the reform is not clear, although two pieces of anecdotal evidence shed
some light. First, according to a telecommunication policy expert in Nuku’alofa, “the expiry of the
franchise agreement with Cable & Wireless provided an ideal commercial opportunity for
government to exploit... during those days the cost of an international call was US$3.30 per minute
but now [December 2008] it’s down to about 30 US cents per minute... also the need for
introduction of new services to Tonga via mobile services and internet connection.” Second, the
close business affiliation of then Crown Prince Tupouto’a 37 with the Shoreline Group (Tonfon) and
the fact that he assented to the bill provided strong political support from within government’s
executive branch to the successful implementation of the reform program. From the outset the
Communications Act was drafted in a manner to reflect the key stakeholder’s interest in establishing
the legal framework for a competitive telecommunication sector.
Two regulatory aspects of the Communications 2000 Act therefore deserve further
discussion. First, telecommunication reform in Tonga had clear objectives from the beginning, as
reflected in the Communications Policy Statement of 2000 that signaled three regulatory priorities
for the reform program: (i) develop the telecommunication infrastructure because it is essential to
economic development; (ii) introduce competition to encourage growth across the sector, fulfill
universal coverage connectivity, improve the quality of services, and lower prices. The introduction
of competition for a second provider was considered as the “first stage in a wider liberalization
process.” The policy statement made clear that government reserved the right to permit any further
new entrant; and (iii) in an attempt to consolidate provision of all telecommunication services, a new
public telecommunication operator, Tonga Communications Corporation (TCC), was established to
35
36
37
Tonfon was acquired by Digicel in 2008, as was Shoreline Electricity. The Shoreline Group of companies, of which the crown
prince (now king) was the major shareholder, owned Tonfon. The Shoreline Group also operated the electricity utility in
Tonga. Since the November 2006 riots, which resulted in the closure of Shoreline’s main office in Nuku’alofa, the company has
had a very limited presence in Tonga.
The international service component of the telephony market was the most profitable, as compared with domestic and fixedline services.
Now King Siaosi Tupou V.
84 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
replace the services previously provided by Cable & Wireless (international) and Tonga
Telecommunications Commission (domestic).
Second, the creation of the Department of Communications as an independent regulator, as
stipulated by the Communications Policy Statement and the Communications Act, indicates
government’s policy intention of creating a predictable environment for investment closely affiliated
with the regulatory aspects. As indicated in the policy statement, “the Minister’s role has a particular
emphasis on policy making, the Department is primarily concerned with policy implementation.”
The department, however, is accountable to the minister responsible for communications and
funded by the government. The regulator has continued to pursue regulatory neutrality and opted
for market forces to regulate the market. It has so far been effective but testing times are ahead.
The comprehensive reform program has raised policy challenges for several key stakeholders,
including TCC. A telecommunication policy expert in Nuku’alofa said,
When the government deregulated the market, going from a monopoly situation to a
competitive environment is quite a challenge; one of the major policy challenges for
TCC was the short transitional period (7 months) it was granted by government to
prepare for competition. At the same time, TCC was also going through internal
restructuring on merging of the two companies (Cable & Wireless and TCIL
[Telecommunications Consultants India Limited]). In addition, there was tense
competition in a small market; TCC had to balance out reducing tariff on services
while attempting to expand network at the same time. 38 Further, Digicel Tonga as
part of a global company has more power in terms of purchasing, trainings, etc than
TCC, a small local company with limited funding sources. For example, if you buy
100,000 headsets you can receive 50% discount whereas if you buy 1,000 similar
headsets you get only 5% discount. However, it’s not doom and gloom for TCC
since the good thing for us is that we know our market very well. It will take some
time for Digicel to gain in-depth knowledge and public brand trust, a time which
TCC can use to its advantage.
Similar to the PNG case, there was an interconnection dispute between Digicel and TCC
that originated in 2003. A telecommunication policy expert in Nuku’alofa said,
[i]nterconnection disputes between the two providers began in 2003 to 2004. The
department has not put in place an arbitration policy and therefore had to call in
experts to draft guidelines for the department to use. The guidelines for arbitration
were completed in April 2005. An arbitrator was appointed, ... and we started the
process of submissions of interconnections fees and reports. The department also
brought in an economic advisor to advise the arbitrator. But at the end of 2005, we
received communications from the two operators that they have solved their
interconnection disputes bilaterally outside the arbitration system.
As of December 2008, there have been no disputes or legal proceedings against any key
stakeholder in the sector.
The case of Tonga shows a regulatory reform program wherein objectives were clearly set
from the beginning and were reflected in domestic policies. The monarchial system of government
38
Universal service coverage commitments and funds are included in the Communications Act 2000. As of July 2009, Tonga
government was drafting regulations and detailed policies on implementing those commitments.
Telecommunication Regulatory Reforms and the Credibility Problem 85
provided the much-needed political commitment, coupled with the support from the crown prince’s
business interests. The multilateral commitments undertaken by Tonga in the WTO added
credibility to the reform program. As a result of the clear reform objective and policy reform lock-in
through the WTO, the reform program in Tonga has been successful.
5. World Trade Organization Implications and Credibility of
Telecommunication Regulatory Reform
Policy Makers and Regulators
The multilateral policy restraints imposed by the WTO telecommunication agreement provide
credibility for telecommunication reform programs. Bosworth and Duncan (2002, p. 10) argued that
“the importance of this [WTO] international commitment should not be underestimated. The
political and bureaucratic systems of most countries are biased toward providing protection to
influential inefficient industries, thereby adversely affecting the economy in general, and efficient
exporters and consumers in particular.”
The PNG government’s press releases, various ICCC communications and media reports,
telecommunication policies, and the interviews 39 conducted by the author provide anecdotal
evidence of the importance of the WTO commitment in supporting the telecommunication
liberalization. The government was reminded of its commitment by the Irish ambassador’s visit to
Port Moresby in late 2007 for discussions with Prime Minister Somare and the reported
communication by the European Commission to the government reminding it of its WTO
telecommunication commitment. These external pressures are reflected in the changes in the
telecommunication policy in late 2008 and early 2009, making particular reference to respecting
WTO commitments.
The latest ICT policy recognizes that open competition provides the best means of
delivering benefits to consumers over the long term. For the first time, it recognizes that alternatives
(closed or limited competition) “are unlikely to be acceptable to the PNG consumers or to the wider
international community where multilateral liberalization through forums such as APEC [Asia–
Pacific Economic Cooperation] and the WTO will put PNG under increasing pressure to open its
telecommunications sector to competition” (Government of Papua New Guinea 2007, p. 1).
The structural separation of Telikom to the NETCO/SERVCO model was rescinded. This
amendment imposed an important forward-looking regulatory step: the recognition that Telikom is
in need of serious rehabilitation and therefore there is need for a staged introduction to full
competition in the telecommunication sector. The introduction of competition in the
telecommunication sector was planned to take place in two phases. Phase 1 (effective from 11
October 2007 but with no end date) is the current arrangement, in which Telikom is still the general
carrier providing mobile services and has a monopoly over fixed-line services and the international
gateway. Digicel PNG was to operate through the Telikom international gateway to connect outside
PNG. Phase 2 was the introduction of full competition in all telecommunication sectors.
In March 2009, the Department of Communication and Information released the final
report of its latest national ICT policy: National ICT Policy Phase 2 Reforms. The report is clear in
terms of key objectives and a tentative timeline is set for the path to open competition. Two issues in
the March 2009 ICT report are important. First, licensing responsibilities were taken from ICCC
39
Several requests for an interview with Digicel PNG’s country manager were unsuccessful.
86 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
and given to a new ICT regulator known as the National Information and Communication
Technology Authority. Licensing procedures are to be transparent and regulatory barriers to market
entry reduced. The role of ICCC as far as the telecommunication sector is concerned is sidelined.
Second, the last stumbling block from the previous anti-competition ICT policies was the regulation
of the international gateway. The March 2009 policy is reported to set a tentative deadline of
October 2009 (“or as early as practicable”) for the liberalization of the international gateway. If
fulfilled, this promise will be a major breakthrough in telecommunication reform since the 2007
ICT policy.
The Tongan case also shows the significance of WTO telecommunication commitments for
telecommunication reform. However, the motives of the stakeholders may differ since Tonga’s
reform program has progressed in the same direction as its WTO commitments. The pursuance of a
liberal stance on trade in services was historically due to Tonga being a small island with limited
commercial and capital resources. Being a small island economy, it depends heavily on the global
economy for trade in goods and services, and therefore Tonga’s trade in services regime was relatively
open. Hence, the WTO telecommunication commitments that Tonga 40 made were easier to
implement since domestic and multilateral policies were moving in the same direction—
liberalization.
However, the impact of certain domestic actors was equally instrumental in setting a clear
objective for liberalization. The most noticeable factor was the political commitment offered by the
Government of Tonga and the crown prince to the telecommunication reform process.
The incumbent state-owned telecommunication providers in both PNG and Tonga were
ill-prepared for operating in a competitive environment. The privatization programs adopted in both
countries had only advanced part way—to corporatization. Limited financing was available to both
incumbents for modernization and rehabilitation and they were given a short transition period to
prepare for competition. On top of this, the incumbents plan to fulfill universal commitments to
provide services in rural and remote areas.
Telecommunications Operators
In both countries the state-owned incumbents behaved in a similar manner. Both had relied on
government for protection while gearing up for competition. However, both operators recognized
the importance of the telecommunication reform program in introducing competition. Since the
introduction of competition, both incumbents have had to adapt or risk losing market share.
Telikom PNG adapted by selling 50% of the equity in its mobile service (B-Mobile) for K130
million. The 50% equity investment was contributed by a “consortium of companies including
United States-based Trilogy International Partners LLC (20%), GEMS Ltd (20%), PNG’s National
Superannuation Fund (5%), and Nambawan Super Ltd (5%)” (Post Courier 2008). With separate
ownership and management of the mobile service, government anticipated that B-Mobile could
compete with new entrant Digicel.
Tonga’s TCC coped with the competitive environment by swiftly bringing its range of
services up to par with the new entrant. These included international roaming and various texting
programs.
As a result of competition, the mobile network in PNG has expanded significantly. The two
main operators in the sector have rolled out mobile services in new areas, including remote areas,
40
See ‘Ofa (2008) for a discussion on the trade in services regime in Tonga.
Telecommunication Regulatory Reforms and the Credibility Problem 87
attracting significant numbers of new subscribers. Digicel coverage in Tonga is almost nationwide
(more than 90%). By mid-2007, competition in Tonga had increased mobile phone ownership from
3.4% to 30%. In PNG, there has been a sharp increase in coverage and a doubling of mobile phone
services in a short period of time (Commonwealth of Australia 2008, p. 43). The Pacific Economic
Survey 2008 reported that the prices of mobile calls (US$ per minute) in Tonga was the lowest in
the Pacific since the introduction of competition (Commonwealth of Australia 2008, p. 43).
Politicians, Nongovernment Organizations, and the General Public
Opposition to the introduction of mobile services 41 in Tonga was remarkably muted, considering
that several nongovernment organizations (NGOs), the Public Servants Association, the prodemocracy movement, the Tongan Small Business Association, Friendly Islands Teachers
Association, the Tongan Women’s Action for Change, and several members of Parliament actively
protested against the terms of membership and eventual WTO membership of Tonga. Opposition to
free trade is widespread throughout the Pacific. Duncan (2008, p. x) suggested that “within the
Pacific, opposition to open markets is very strong and supported by vested interests, ideology, and
cultural beliefs. Economic issues also constrain the response to changes in the terms of trade through
trade liberalisation, such as insecurity of land tenure and poor access to credit.”
Discussions in Tonga’s Parliament in the lead-up to the December 2005 WTO signing also
reflected anti-free trade concerns. However, the parliamentary minutes do not show any opposition
to the liberalization of the mobile service sector. The remarkably small degree of concern about the
liberalization of the mobile service sector prompts one fundamental point. Since Tonfon entered the
market in 2003 and Digicel in 2008, the general public, including rural areas and remote islands,
benefited from the wireless technology. The interconnectivity gap between the five major island
groups in Tonga was dramatically reduced, as was the linkage between Tonga and the outside world.
Competition provided incentives for the state-owned incumbent to improve efficiency. Hence, it is
unlikely that any political pressure against the development of this sector would not have been
supported by the general public. Similarly, as reflected in the PNG case, once the wireless technology
benefited rural and isolated areas, the general public’s support for the liberalization of the mobile
service sector increased dramatically. Therefore, convincing the public that services will improve and
prices will be reduced is critical to gaining their support for the introduction of competition.
6. Conclusion
The telecommunication regulatory reforms in PNG encountered challenges that the independent
regulator dealt with to the best of its ability. The frequent policy changes over the past 5 years point
to the limited ability of the domestic independent regulator to provide credibility to the reform
process. Actions instigated through various channels by the Irish-owned Digicel operator, including
the European Commission reminding the PNG government of its WTO obligations, provide
evidence that multilateral policy restraints can provide credibility to the telecommunication reform
process. Revisions to PNG’s ICT policy in late 2008 and early 2009 also show that the government
is recognizing its WTO obligations. Further, the relatively muted public opposition to the
liberalization of mobile services in Tonga and PNG provides evidence that once an economic reform
program directly addresses the challenges of being small and isolated, policy adoption encounters less
political pressure.
41
Both the entrance of Tonfon in 2003 and Digicel in 2008.
88 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
One of the main lessons from the PNG case study is that regulatory capture provides
incentives for government to renege on commitments on telecommunication reform. The eventual
“internal reform” of ICCC since its involvement in the telecommunication reform process in 2005,
culminating in the removal of its autonomous power to grant licenses and reverting this back to the
minister responsible for telecommunications, shows the vulnerability of domestic policy restraints to
vested political interests.
The state-owned telecommunication operator, Telikom, needed significant rehabilitation
time and funding to prepare for open competition. The government may not have been clear about
the needed rehabilitation following the 2005 NEC decision. Since the December 2005 decision,
seven national ICT policies have been passed in a time span of about 3 years. The frequent policy
changes have created significant uncertainty about investment regulations. Nevertheless, when
PNG’s WTO telecommunication commitments were queried by the EU, the PNG government,
through its latest ICT policy, realigned its policies to its WTO commitments. The multilateral
policy restraints therefore provided credibility to the reform program.
The Tongan case provides equally important evidence on the support that multilateral
policy restraints can provide to the credibility of the telecommunication reform processes. Although
the reform encountered less policy uncertainty in Tonga, the WTO commitments strengthened
Tonga’s unilateral reform initiative by locking in its liberalization policy intentions.
The paper provides three important insights for the donor community. First, the possibility
of regulatory capture is always present and can undermine the credibility of telecommunications and
other reforms in the Pacific island countries. Domestic policy restraints relying on independent
regulators are vulnerable to political interference and continue to be hampered by limited financial
and technical expertise. The development of technical assistance programs tailored to the
enhancement of credible domestic telecommunication regulatory frameworks is vital.
Second, the recognition of the crucial role of pro-competitive policies leading to
liberalization of the telecommunication sector increases the credibility of telecommunication
reforms. The regulatory experience of PNG and Tonga emphasizes the need for regulatory regimes
that are immune from domestic political pressure. Investment confidence and sustainable
competition in the sector has been enhanced through the respect PNG and Tonga granted to its
WTO telecommunication commitments. The regulatory outcome highlights the need for the
international donor community to support unilateral liberalization and privatization reform
programs of Pacific islands countries in the telecommunication sector to encourage private
investment in the sector.
Third, technical assistance in making the case for reforms is vital. Once it was seen that
competition would have significant benefits, including for those in rural and isolated areas, the
general public’s support for the liberalization of the mobile service sector increased dramatically and
it became much more difficult for the government to resist or reverse the reform. Therefore,
convincing the public that services will improve and prices will be reduced is critical to gaining their
support for the introduction of competition.
Telecommunication Regulatory Reforms and the Credibility Problem 89
Appendix 4.1: List of Interview Respondents
Interviews in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea
Respondent
Function/Organization
Duration
(minute)
Date
1
Small Business Association of PNG
8 September 2008
58
2
Manufacturing Council of PNG
9 September 2008
21
3
Government official
9 September 2008
41
4
Government official
9 September 2008
55
5
Business operator
10 September 2008
27
6
Telecommunication policy expert
10 September 2008
47
7
Telecommunication policy expert
11 September 2008
52
8
Business operator
11 September 2008
19
9
Telecommunication policy expert
13 September 2008
155
10
Business operator
16 September 2008
22
11
Business operator
17 September 2008
35
a
12
Government official
6 May 2009
–
13
Telecommunication policy experta
7 May 2009
–
14
Telecommunication policy experta
8 May 2009
–
8 May 2009
–
15
Government official
a
Interviews in Nuku’alofa, Tonga
Respondent
Sector
Duration
(minute)
Date
16
Government official
27 November 2008
32
17
Government official
28 November 2008
58
18
Government official
28 November 2008
37
19
Telecommunication policy expert
24 November 2008
49
20
Telecommunication policy expert
24 November 2008
53
21
Telecommunication policy expert
23 November 2008
50
22
Telecommunication policy expert
25 November 2008
24
23
Telecommunication policy expert
26 November 2008
32
24
Business operator
2 December 2008
34
25
Business operator
4 December 2008
17
26
Business operator
4 December 2008
29
– = not applicable.
a
Interview questions and responses were communicated via e-mail.
Note: Telecommunication policy experts were officials from the incumbent operator, competitors, the regulator, the
ministry/department of communications, and other relevant institutions.
Source: Author.
90 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
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5 Political Economy and
Championing Reforms
in the Cook Islands
and Samoa
by Emele S. Duituturaga
ABSTRACT
The Cook Islands and Samoa have been among the best-performing Pacific economies in recent
years. They have been heralded for their success in achieving economic growth by undertaking
comprehensive reforms after economic crises. This investigation into the social, economic, political,
and institutional factors that contributed to the successful implementation of their economic reforms
shows that political leadership at the highest level was critical. The chances of success were increased
by continuity in the political leadership and a stable political environment in which the champions
of reform could remain focused and did not have to risk jeopardizing the aims of reform in order to
retain power. Technically competent and supportive senior public servants also played an important
role, as did the public support generated through nationwide summits or retreats and the sustained
public dialogue that followed them. In both countries, the sense of self-determination and taking
ownership of their development featured prominently.
1. Introduction
The Cook Islands and Samoa have been among the best-performing Pacific economies in recent
years. They have been heralded for their success in achieving economic growth as a result of
undertaking comprehensive reforms. The locally driven and determined program of economic
reforms initiated during the 1990s earned Samoa the reputation of the Pacific’s model economy, and
placed it among the fastest-growing of the Pacific island economies. The Cook Islands, having
experienced a major economic crisis in the mid-1990s, introduced comprehensive reforms in 1996
that led to almost immediate revival of the economy. This chapter reports the results of an
investigation into those social, economic, political, and institutional factors that acted as constraints
to economic growth in the two countries and those factors that contributed to the implementation
and success of their economic reforms.
96
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
There is information readily available on the nature of these reforms. This study pays
particular attention to the key actors who championed the reforms, their motivation for the reforms,
the context within which the reforms were undertaken, and the lessons that can be drawn from the
two countries. The information on which this report is based was mostly collected from in-depth
interviews and discussions with people in Apia and Rarotonga during field visits in February 2009.
The report is in four sections. Section 2 looks at the political and cultural contexts in which past
reforms have taken place and the circumstances leading to the need for reforms. Section 3 focuses on
the key actors and their motivation for the reforms. Section 4 looks at factors contributing to the
success of the reforms. The final section is about looking forward: what reforms have yet to be
completed and the lessons learned from reforms in the Cook Islands and Samoa.
2. Context
Samoa
Since gaining independence in 1962, Samoa has had a Westminster-style parliamentary democracy
with a parliamentary term of 5 years and a unicameral legislative assembly consisting of 49 members,
47 of whom are Matai 1 elected by citizens aged 21 years and over, and two of whom represent the
part- and non-Samoan population. The Prime Minister, who is chosen by Parliament and appointed
by the Head of State, leads a cabinet of 12 members.
The governing Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP) dominates Samoan politics. It first
came to office in 1982, led by the late Tofilau Eti Alesana, and has been in power on a continuous
basis since 1991. Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Sailele Malielegaoi was appointed Prime Minister in November
1998 after Tofilau resigned due to failing health.
Samoa’s Parliament presently does not have formal opposition. The main opposition party
was the Samoa Democratic United Party, but Parliament withdrew that recognition after infighting
in late 2006 among opposing members of Parliament resulted in a split, leaving the party without
recognition under parliamentary standing orders.
In April 2008, two HRPP members resigned from the party and became independents.
They banded together with other independents (former members of the Samoa Democratic United
Party) to form a new political party, the Tautua Samoa Party. The party's founders describe their
aim as providing parliamentary opposition to the ruling HRPP and targeting the next general
election in 2011 (Wikipedia Online: Tautua Samoa Party).
In July 2008, another new party called the People’s Party was established on the back of the
People Against Switching Sides (PASS) lobby group (Wikipedia Online: The People’s Party). No
sitting Parliament members are members of the People’s Party. The PASS group formed in
opposition to the government’s controversial decision that the country would switch from driving on
the right-hand side of the road to the left. After several protests and petitions, PASS also filed a legal
challenge alleging, among other things, that the switch was a breach of the right to life (enshrined in
Article 5 of the Constitution). This challenge was rejected by the Supreme Court. A last-minute plea
from PASS to postpone the switch was rejected by the cabinet, and, as of 7 September 2009, cars
drive on the left in Samoa, the first country to switch the flow of traffic from one side of the road to
another since Iceland and Sweden did so in the 1960s.
1
The Samoan term for a chief.
Political Economy and Championing Reforms in the Cook Islands and Samoa
97
The Human Rights Protection Party Drive for Reforms
The HRPP was established in 1979 and, at its inception, became the official opposition party to the
government of the day led by Prime Minister Tupuola Efi. That government, through its deliberate
use of the powers of a commission of inquiry as a political instrument to cause the arbitrary and
prejudicial dismissal of senior public servants, gave rise to the name of the new political party—the
Human Rights Protection Party (2011). In 1981, with government finances exhausted, a wage
increase sought by the public servants could not be met. This resulted in a Public Servants
Association general strike in 1981, which lasted for 3 months. Basic foodstuffs were in acute short
supply. Samoans were forced to stand in long queues to buy basic necessities such as rice and canned
fish. At the time, the only meat that could be imported in any quantity was chicken backs, which are
mostly bone and fat and nutritionally unacceptable. This period is referred to as the formative years
of the reform (Kelekoli 2009). The low pay of civil servants and the hardships faced by the general
populace influenced their perception of what was wrong and their growing discontent with the
Tupuola Efi government. In December 1982, when the HRPP took over government under the
leadership of Tofilau Eti Alesana, it was faced with the massive task of rebuilding the national
economy and replenishing the government's coffers.
Later, there were further setbacks to the economy as a result of several major natural
disasters. In 1989, heavy floods caused extensive damage to the country's roads and bridges
infrastructure. This was followed by the cyclones Ofa in 1990 and Val in 1991, and the gale force
winds of Lyn in 1993, which caused unprecedented devastation within the space of a few years to the
whole of Samoa. In 1993, taro blight wiped out the taro industry, the country’s most important
export.
The HRPP placed greater emphasis on villages and rural districts, economic development,
and safeguarding the integrity of the Samoan culture and traditions. The thrust of the HRPP reforms
was to achieve good roads, electricity, piped water, and overall improvement of life in the villages and
rural areas. Indeed, the well-known foundation motto of the HRPP (2011) was “What is good for
people who reside in Apia, is most assuredly also good for people living in all parts of Samoa.” This
saying was reiterated in the author’s interview with Prime Minister Tuilaepa as he spoke passionately
about still being a “village boy” at heart and was adamant that “what is good enough for Apia has to
be good enough for the rest of Samoa.” He illustrated this with the example of being born in the
village and having to carry coconuts for long distances. This motivated him to ensure there would be
sealed plantation access roads.
The long and continuing dominance of the HRPP in the Samoan political landscape was a
subject often encountered during the interviews. While there has been some discontent and
questioning about whether there is true democracy at play and the extent of clientelist politics, there
was acceptance that political stability has contributed to economic growth and the enabling policy
environment for reforms. This is the first key lesson of this study: Political stability is a precondition
for the successful implementation of reforms. This point was emphasized by the deputy governor of
the Central Bank of Samoa, who argued that while reforms are ongoing, the government’s continuity
is a critical issue because it has in the past provided policy stability (Bourne 2009).
Samoan Culture
The study found that the strong Samoan identity featured prominently as a foundation for
sustaining the reform program. Samoan culture is referred to as Fa'a Samoa. This is the “Samoan
Way,” an all-encompassing concept that denotes the obligations that a Samoan owes to family,
98
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
community, and church, and the strong sense of pride in Samoan identity and the respect that it
commands.
Fa'a Samoa is also evident in the existing dual legal system—the Western-style legal system
administered by the police force and the justice department as part of the central government, and
the traditional system administered at the village level through the village councils, considered as
local government. Members of the village council (fono) are elected from and by members of each
village. A government representative, called the mayor, presides over the village council. The 1990
Village Fono Act gives village councils authority over village law and order, health, and social issues.
There have been instances where the two systems come into conflict, but generally things work
smoothly.
Traditional leaders with Matai titles are heads of their family units and hold the land titles.
They are also the only people eligible to serve in Parliament. They wield the most influence when
they are in government, and consequently hold power over government decisions regarding
development. Within each village, every family has a Matai who is a member of the fono and
represents the interests of the family. The role of the Matai is very important in Samoan society,
interwoven deeply into the fabric of Samoan culture and history. A Matai is the chief or head of an
aiga (extended family group). The Matai is responsible for everything that involves the family: land,
assets, disputes, and well-being. There are some 18,000 Matai in Samoa, both men and women. In
the past, only Matai could vote in parliamentary elections. It thus became a relatively common
practice for prospective parliamentary candidates to ensure that members of their constituency
received titles to make certain that they could increase their share of the vote.
Samoan cultural tradition hinges on reciprocal obligations between extended family
members and between the Matai and their people. This strong sense of reciprocity has often come
under scrutiny from the Western perspective of corruption, nepotism, and clientelist politics.
Nonetheless, the strong Samoan cultural foundation has been given credit for the reform agenda and
successful development. Prime Minister Tuilaepa confirmed that the reform changes are based on
the Samoan way of life. All those who participated in this study acknowledged that Samoan culture
played a crucial role in the success of the reforms. The public service reform champion, Faamausili
Matagialofi Luaiufi, was adamant that the reforms were successful due to their united front and
collective pride in Fa’a Samoa and staunch belief in their cultural values and identity. Acting Public
Service Commission (PSC) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mika Kelekolio agreed that culture
played a large part in making the hard decisions more palatable and helping people buy into the
vision.
These views are supported by Deputy Prime Minister Misa Telefoni (2007), who stated that
Samoan culture is based on deep-rooted and timeless traditions that are fundamental to its sustained
political stability and economic strength; and while Samoa did go through short periods of economic
and political turmoil in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the strong Samoan culture was the binding
factor that imposed normalcy and stability and provided the climate for constructive change. In his
budget address in 2002, Mr. Telefoni made this often-quoted remark about globalization: “Samoa
will not allow its culture to be sacrificed at the altar of globalization.” 2 This is the second key lesson
of this study: Culture can provide a strong foundation for sustaining reforms.
2
Government of Samoa. 2002. Strategy for the Development of Samoa 2002–2004: opportunities for all. Treasury Department,
Economic Policy and Planning Division, Apia.
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The Cook Islands
The Cook Islands became self-governing in 1965, in free association with New Zealand. The free
association status, which is distinct from that of full independence, allows Cook Islanders to
maintain New Zealand citizenship. The key features of the free association relationship are set out in
the Cook Islands Constitution Act 1965. These are that the Cook Islands has powers to make its
own laws; the Cook Islands government has full executive powers; the Queen in Right of New
Zealand remains the Head of State of Cook Islands; and New Zealand retains responsibilities for the
external affairs and defense of the Cook Islands.
The Cook Islands has a unicameral Parliament with 24 elected members and a
parliamentary term of 4 years. There is full adult suffrage, and although registration is compulsory,
voting is not. There is also a 15-member House of Ariki (Chiefs) established in 1966, composed of
six Ariki from Rarotonga and nine from the outer islands (House of Ariki Act 1966). The Ariki
advise the government on land use and customary issues (House of Ariki Act 1966, pp. 6–7). Of
note is that in June 2008, a small majority of members of the House of Ariki attempted to dissolve
the elected government and to take control of the country's leadership to regain some of their
traditional prestige and authority. “Basically we are dissolving the leadership, the prime minister, and
the deputy prime minister and the ministers,” Chief Makea Vakatini Joseph Ariki explained. Prime
Minister Jim Marurai described the takeover move as “ill-founded and nonsensical” and eventually
members of the House of Ariki accepted to return to their regular duties (Wikipedia Online: Politics
of the Cook Islands).
The Cook Islands Party governed from 1965 to 1978 under Sir Albert Henry and then
again from 1989 to 1999 under Sir Geoffrey Henry. The party’s dominance came to an end in
November 1999 with the resignation of Prime Minister Joe Williams. Williams had led a minority
government since October 1999 when the New Alliance Party left the government coalition and
joined the main opposition Democratic Party, which led to Democratic Alliance party leader Dr.
Terepai Maoate being sworn in as Prime Minister in November 1999. He was succeeded by his copartisan Dr. Robert Woonton in February 2002. When Dr. Woonton lost his seat in the 2004
elections, Jim Marurai took over and has remained the Prime Minister until now.
The Cook Islands Party’s Drive for Self-Determination
Similar to the dominance of the HRPP ideology in Samoa leading the charge on comprehensive
reforms, the Cook Islands Party’s drive for self-determination dominated Cook Islands politics and
led the charge on radical and sweeping reforms. Continuity in leadership and a determination to take
charge of one’s own affairs were the underlying sentiments of these reforms.
The party was formed by Sir Albert Henry, the first Prime Minister of the Cook Islands,
who ruled from 1965 until 1978 when Sir Tom Davis and the Democratic Party came to power
(Davis 1979). The Cook Islands Party returned to power 6 years later under the leadership of Sir
Geoffrey Henry and maintained control for another decade.
Throughout his time in office, there was one beacon guiding the leadership of Sir Albert
Henry: “The Cook Islands for the Cook Islanders.” According to Libby (1979), Henry’s first
question on any action by government was, “Is it good for the people of the Cook Islands?” His
strong leadership instilled pride and gave confidence that they, the Maori Polynesians, were capable
of running their own country.
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His is a wisdom and a shrewdness gleaned from working with and coming to deeply
understand his fellow man. There is only one way to do that and that is to get out
and work with them, share their struggles to make a living for themselves and their
families, find out what it means to have one of the children become seriously ill
when there is barely enough money to pay the current bills ... Live it and learn it.
(Davis 1979, p. 25)
Participants in the discussions in the Cook Islands reported that Sir Albert Henry was
indeed a visionary and dynamic leader. He was fervently committed to his country and his people
and very much a shrewd negotiator. Sir Geoffrey Henry, who was to follow in his footsteps, referred
to him as “my hero.”
The sentiments of self-determination continued to echo throughout the Cook Islands Party
manifesto and policies and, as the study found, in later years the quest for self-determination was to
the detriment of the economy; Sir Geoffrey admits in his own words, “I was driving too hard,
wanted change too hard; I lost touch of financial management.”
Cook Islands Culture and Society
The study noted that culture did not necessarily feature strongly in the Cook Islands. Nevertheless, it
is important to note that people in both countries are of Polynesian origin and share similar cultural
values. There is a common language in both countries and both males and females hold chiefly
authority.
Cook Islanders are Polynesians commonly known as Cook Island Maoris. The people are
broadly divided into two groups: those from the northern Cook Islands speak Pukapukan and their
descendents came from Samoa and Tonga to the west; those from the southern Cook Islands speak
Rarotongan and their descendants are reported to have come from the Society Islands and Marquesas
to the east. Of the permanent Cook Island residents, 63% live in Rarotonga, 25% in the Southern
Group islands, and 12% in the Northern Group islands (Statistics Office 2003). Cook Island society
is based on an association to a village and its chief. Chiefly titles, Ariki, and land rights are passed
through both the male and female lineage but at the discretion of the senior family member.
Wichman (1998) observed that despite the advent of a monetized economy and high
mobility of Cook Islanders to Rarotonga and overseas, the basic fabric of family and community is
treasured and still exerts influence over Cook Islanders. The family provides a social safety net for
most Cook Islanders and remains the basic economic and social unit in the economy. There is a
strong and important interconnectedness of land, culture, and family. Each island practices its own
form of community control and social organization and there is no uniformity in the application of
customary practices from island to island or even among the communities on the main island of
Rarotonga (Wichman 1998, p. 11). Reciprocity is a key feature of family obligations. Just as families
and tribes gather together to enjoy company and social functions, an important cultural trait of Cook
Islanders is that they rally together to support each other in times of hardship, such as when there is
destruction of food crops and shelter during devastating hurricanes. This customary obligation of Cook
Islanders to support each other is also extended to village and church activities and programs and in the
outer islands through semi-subsistence activities in agriculture, handicraft, and coastal fisheries.
Political Economy and Championing Reforms in the Cook Islands and Samoa
101
3. Past Reform Efforts
Samoan Reforms
The home-grown reform process, which began in the late 1980s, was revitalized in 1993 following
recovery from the 1990
−1991 cyclones, when Samoa’s first Statement of Economic Strategy
presented the framework for an economic and public sector reform program aimed at promoting
private sector development and improving the efficiency of the public sector. As observed by
Knapman and Saldanha (1999), the reform program was implemented in a gradualist, sequenced
manner. The reforms encompassed (i) tax and tariff reforms, (ii) finance sector liberalization,
(iii) the introduction of performance budgeting and the devolution of financial management, (iv) new
governance frameworks for public financial management, (v) state-owned enterprises and private
corporations, (vi) restructuring of government departments including devolution of responsibility for
human resource management and development, (vii) institutional strengthening of government
departments and state-owned enterprises, (viii) education and health sector reforms, and
(ix) telecommunication and postal sector reforms (Sialaoa 2003).
The Key Actors
This study found leadership to be the key. The reforms were led by outstanding, committed, and
visionary leaders supported by professionally qualified and technically competent executives. Herein
lies the third lesson from this study: Successful reform requires shared leadership between visionary
leaders with political will together with competent, professional implementers.
The period of leadership of the late Prime Minister Tofilau was associated with significant
constitutional reform. He was a member of the 1960 constitutional convention that paved the way
for independence from New Zealand rule in 1962. He returned to Parliament in 1967 and became
deputy prime minister and finance minister in 1982 and leader of the HRPP. He introduced
universal suffrage with the 1991 elections and made wholesale changes to his cabinet, bringing in
Fiame Naomi Mata’afa as the first woman to serve in a Samoan cabinet.
Tofilau Eti was described as a visionary and decisive leader and, although he had limited
education, he was someone who listened well (Tafuna’i 2009). Under his leadership as Prime
Minister, the reform period from 1991 to 1998 was considered as “the years of sacrifice” no frills, no
benefits, no increments. He asked civil servants to sacrifice their entitlements for the benefit of the
country. His vision was focused on rebuilding the country and the economy, and strong on everyone
receiving and enjoying the benefits of economic growth (Faamausili 2009). Due to Tofilau’s ill
health, Tuilaepa assumed leadership and continued with the economic and public sector reforms.
Prime Minister Tuilaepa is considered to be the real driving force of the reforms. He is an
economist by profession, having obtained a master of commerce degree from the University of
Auckland, the first Samoan to do so (Wikipedia Online: Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi). He was
the deputy prime minister and finance minister under Tofilau Eti. This smooth leadership transition
contributed to continuity in the reform policies. Those interviewed for this study described Prime
Minister Tuilaepa as a visionary and decisive leader. They also mentioned his emphasis on Fa’a
Samoa initiatives such as the revival of the Samoan fine mat and his discouragement of the lavish
commercialization of fa’alavelave (cultural exchanges at birth, marriage, and death rituals).
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In the interview, Tuilaepa referred to himself as a technician, making it easy for him to
understand the issues. As finance minister in 1998, he pushed Prime Minister Tofilau for reforms
and he credited Tofilau for having full confidence in his advice and the smooth handover when he
became Prime Minister. He said that it was relatively easy to push through reforms such as the
corporatization of telecommunications, which he considered as his major reform achievement. By
retaining the finance portfolio after taking over the prime ministership and championing the finance
sector reforms, Tuilaepa pushed through with reform commitments in this area supported by senior
management in the treasury.
A leading treasury official who championed the economic and financial reforms was Epa
Tuioti, financial secretary from 1990 to 1999. In reflecting on his motivation for supporting the
reforms, he mentioned having attended international meetings where references were made to the
“Pacific paradox” and finding it uncomfortable to be at the receiving end of the criticism. This made
him quite determined to “break away from the pack” (as he put it) to do something different. His
motivation was to demonstrate that Samoans could implement the reforms. In this regard, he
realized it would not happen overnight and that it was best to start with his own portfolio in
financial management; as a central agency, he would then be able to demonstrate the value of
reforms to line agencies. He felt strongly that he could not tell other ministries to change without
first reforming his own ministry.
The reforms commenced with the introduction of the value-added goods and services tax in
1993. There was opposition through public demonstrations but the reforms had solid support from
the Prime Minister and the cabinet. Resistance to reform came from opponents from within who
questioned the need for wholesale changes rather than fine tuning. Tuioti reflected that there were
numerous internal discussions and that he had invested in developing good relations with other
CEOs. This, he stressed, was a key lesson: For the reforms to be successful, they needed the
cooperation of stakeholders and ongoing efforts to ensure that line ministries were engaged. A lot of
time was spent with the Prime Minister and the finance minister. He encouraged the move,
participated in all the discussions, and was a persuasive proponent for reform with cabinet members.
Tuioti concurred that Prime Minister Tuilaepa was the driving force and that the Prime Minister
encouraged staff to give the best quality technical advice.
Accompanying the economic reforms were reforms to restructure the public service: the
reduction of ministries from 27 to 14 and the introduction of employment contracts for the top two
layers of management. The PSC chair at the time was Fiame Naomi Mata’afa. Fiame Naomi was
education minister for 15 years (three terms) and is the current women, community, and social
development minister. She is one of the most senior members of Cabinet and the only female
member. She is the daughter of Samoa's first Prime Minister and was pursuing studies in New
Zealand when she was recalled by her extended family to take up one of her father's titles, Fiame
from Lotofaga. Following her father's death, her mother became member of Parliament for the
constituency of Lotofaga. Subsequently, Fiame Naomi took over the reins.
As the PSC chair and education minister, Fiame Naomi drove the education reforms. Her
motivation for supporting the reforms was that the country was faced with a very serious financial
crisis and needed change. After the strike of 1981, there was a move toward rationalization, which
continued throughout the reforms. She viewed Tofilau as a strong leader and Tuilepa as technically
competent. Fiame Naomi stated that it was a partnership that drove the reforms, assisted by the
executives who worked closely together in managing the crisis and who made a big push for tangible
evidence of the benefits.
Political Economy and Championing Reforms in the Cook Islands and Samoa
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Implementing the public service reforms at the executive level was reform champion
Faamausili Dr. Matagialofi Luaiufi, former PSC CEO, who had been handpicked by Prime Minister
Tofilau Eti in 1998 to drive the public service reforms. Dr. Matagialofi considered Tofilau to be
visionary in recognizing her leadership potential and entrusting her to drive the public service
reforms. She had studied in the United Kingdom and was greatly influenced by Margaret Thatcher’s
reforms. But she was determined that the Samoan reforms would be driven from within; she believed
that ownership was a strong factor in the success of the reforms. She stated that they did not take
anything for granted. In her words:
The reforms proposed had to suit our culture, beliefs, and values. What made our
reforms successful are cultural values and beliefs: unity, pride in Fa’a Samoa—
language, identity—what defines who we are. In making presentations, we used our
own language. In this way the palagis would not be able to pick our brains.
What motivated Dr. Matagialofi was being a change agent. She had been in the civil service
for 23 years and found displeasure in the centralized structures and what she saw as the inefficiency
of the public service and abuses of power. Having the backing of the Prime Minister and of the PSC
chair, she was able to drive the reforms through. She stated that it helped that parliamentarians were
supportive, as they wanted to see changes in the public service. Taking advantage of the
parliamentarians’ support, they conducted numerous public consultations to inform the public of the
reforms.
Another reform champion identified by this study was Brenda Heather-Latu, former
attorney general, who worked closely with Dr. Matagialofi and Epa Tuioti in providing support to
the reforms and led the development of the necessary enabling legislative frameworks such as
deregulation. She was a member of the Cabinet Steering Committee and gave day-to-day support to
the executives leading the legal and regulatory aspects of the changeover. She reiterated that,
politically, they had a Prime Minister who was very keen on having something better. The whole
government was in a fever of reform and even though they would hit obstructions from ministers
and ministries, the reform fever and political support from the Prime Minister meant they were able
to push the reforms through.
Brenda Heather-Latu stated that one of her incentives was the availability of donor funding
support, especially from the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID). They were
able to maximize all the opportunities provided by donors, such as having access to consultants in
Canberra to assist in drafting legislation. Demonstrated benefits such as completion of airports,
roads, and bridges helped. She also credits the success of the reforms to culture—their strong sense of
identity. She admitted that donors who tried to roll out a template received a strong negative
reaction. A lot of trouble was taken to negotiate and customize: this, she said, was the main reason
for success.
Cook Island Reforms
The Cook Islands economy enjoyed an unbroken period of growth from 1978 to 1994. Real growth
in gross domestic product (GDP) averaged 12.4% over the decade 1984–1993—which must rank as
one of the most outstanding periods of economic growth anywhere, and certainly in the Pacific. The
growth was driven by tourism and an expanding public sector that relied heavily on aid and foreign
borrowing. For many years, successive governments used public sector employment as a means of
delivering political patronage and, especially on the outer islands, a form of social security. The
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unsustainability of this behavior was masked by the buoyancy of the tourism industry, generous aid
flows, revenues from the offshore finance industry, and borrowings (Wichman 1998).
However, the economic growth came to an abrupt halt in 1995 when real GDP declined by
3.2% after increasing by 10.6% in 1994. The economic contraction was triggered by a loss of
confidence in the local Cook Islands currency, whose rapid growth had underpinned rapid
government expenditure and growth in fiscal deficits and national debt. Between 1987 and 1995, the
Cook Islands government issued its own currency in parallel with the New Zealand dollar. At the
beginning, the local currency was backed by 100% foreign reserves holdings in a currency board
arrangement. But in 1989 the foreign reserves requirement was lowered to 50% for most notes and
coins and to only 5% for the CI$3 note. As a result, there was basically no discipline over the supply
of local currency (see Burdekin 2008 for a history of the operation of the Cook Islands currency
board).
The accelerating currency issuance and increasing fiscal deficits led to a loss of confidence in
the local currency in 1994. The two foreign banks, ANZ and Westpac, tightened credit in mid-1994
and by the end of 1994 both banks refused to convert Cook Islands dollars to New Zealand dollars.
The Currency Amendment Act of 1994–1995 was passed and the New Zealand dollar was made the
sole monetary unit. With the withdrawal of the Cook Islands currency, the money supply fell sharply
and deflation resulted. The loss of confidence and deflation resulted in a severe decline in economic
activity. The fiscal and monetary crises, and a sharply increasing national debt, 3 led to calls for
assistance with reform.
At the beginning of March 1996, an assessment was made of the country’s financial and
economic situation. It became clear that the government would not be able to meet its financial
commitments through the end of the fiscal year. The critical situation provided the impetus for a
thorough approach to public sector reforms, development of a new economic strategy, and the
cabinet’s adoption of the Path to Recovery: Reform Agenda, the first comprehensive document
outlining the government’s intention for economic reform.
The Path to Recovery report outlined the Economic Reform Program (ERP), which included
downsizing the public sector; strengthening financial and economic management; stimulating private
sector growth; reforming the leading productive sectors (tourism, agriculture, and marine resources);
and addressing sustainability and social equity issues.
The Economic Reform Program
The ERP involved a three-pronged strategy:
„
achieving and maintaining macroeconomic stability, with a strong focus on attaining fiscal
and external sector balances and reducing debt;
„
ensuring structural reforms, with policies to reduce the role of government and to promote
private sector–led output expansion in the key productive sectors; and
„
mitigating risks, especially with respect to social risks.
To a large extent the reform design was adopted from the New Zealand model and driven
by external advisers. The person who was mentioned frequently in the interviews was Lloyd Powell, a
New Zealander who had reformed the Bank of New Zealand. Clearly, a commercial sector approach
had been applied in New Zealand, even though the Office of the Public Service Commissioner and
3
The national debt rose from NZ$24 million in 1990 to NZ$245 million in mid-1996, which was equivalent to 133% of 1996–
1997 GDP and to NZ$12,285 per capita (ADB 1996).
Political Economy and Championing Reforms in the Cook Islands and Samoa
105
the Office of the Prime Minister were responsible for implementing the reform program, with the
assistance of the Ministry of Economic Management and Finance (MFEM) and the Office of the
Solicitor General.
To support the momentum of the Cook Islands ERP—in terms of facilitating private sector
growth and curbing government control—core reform legislation was passed that covered the Public
Service Act, the Public Expenditure Review Committee and Audit Act, the Ministry of Finance and
Economic Management Act, The Local Government (Rarotonga) Act, and The Value Added Tax
and Income Tax Acts. These important acts were reviewed, revised, and passed within a span of 1
year—a monumental task (Wichman 1998).
As a result of this process, a number of radical changes took place that resulted in
„
a reduction of the powers and responsibilities of the public service commissioner;
„
downsizing of the public service;
„
changes in the salary scale for the public service;
„
hiring and firing of public servants becoming the responsibility of heads of ministries
(HOMs) and CEOs;
„
HOMs and CEOs receiving increased powers and becoming responsible for administering
their individual agencies;
„
a business orientation for government agencies;
„
budgets based on service delivery and outputs; and
„
a changeover from cash accounting to accrual accounting.
The Key Actor
It was the view of those interviewed that the key architect of the reforms was Sir Geoffrey Henry. Sir
Geoffrey had entered politics in 1972 under the reign of Sir Albert Henry and eventually took over
leadership of the Cook Islands Party. Although initially he stood as an independent member of
Parliament, Sir Geoffrey later joined the Cook Islands Party. Sir Geoffrey continued Sir Albert
Henry’s passion and drive for self-determination.
In the interview, it was clear that Sir Geoffrey Henry was driven by the absolute belief that
the Cook Islands was for Cook Islanders and not an “outpost of Wellington.” His strong belief was
that the Cook Islands was, in actuality, governed by Wellington. He recalled that even as recently as
1973, Cook Islanders could not mingle with the Papaas (white people). This made him more
determined to change matters. The ultimate aim was for Cook Islanders to manage their own affairs
in Rarotonga. He was so driven by this vision of “crystallizing their image on the international stage
to be recognised as a sovereign nation and not as a province of New Zealand” that, in pursuit of this
goal, he shifted his focus to foreign affairs.
He wanted a parliamentary system that had at its core Cook Islands customs and the
country’s own style of representation. He had love and passion for his country and saw that they
were at a crossroad. Beginning to lose their language, they were becoming more New Zealand
citizens and less Cook Islanders. He was intent on developing the pride of his people in themselves—
the beginning of nationhood and nation building. Three factors that stand out with Sir Geoffrey are
his decisiveness, his vision for the nation, and his love and passion for the country and the people.
Sir Geoffrey stated that the reform process was clear in his mind. It was an economic and
fiscal necessity but he wanted Cook Islanders to participate, decide for themselves and own their
decisions, and have pride in sorting out their problems by themselves. His oft-used phrase was, “the
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best-governed are the least-governed.” He said, “We had successfully dismantled Wellington but
were colonizing our own people in the islands. We were worse than ‘mummy government.” 4
In the interview, Sir Geoffrey stated that basically he was at fault for the development of the
crisis by allowing finances to drift through, leaving matters in the hands of his financial secretary,
although he described himself as having no time for sloppiness. When he became Prime Minister
and finance minister, he was determined to make a significant change to the pattern of
administration. He was determined to break down the colonial pattern of administration.
There were four icons of colonial administration that he targeted: the treasury, the public
service commission, the premier’s department, and the public works department. He set about to
dismantle public works, changed the status of the treasury to be just another department and not
“overlord of the country,” and did the same with PSC. All this happened during the 1996 reforms.
4. Success and Constraint Factors
Leadership
Prominent in the reform perspectives described above are strong, visionary, leadership and the
alignment of purpose and, in Samoa’s case, partnership between public sector leaders at political and
senior civil service levels. These are clearly the key contributing factors to the success of the reforms
in both countries. All the key players had common backgrounds: they were technically qualified, had
studied overseas, were convinced of the need for reforms, and, in the case of Samoa, were strong in
their cultural identity as Samoans. They worked as a tight team. It is also important that the reforms
were internally driven by the Cook Islanders and Samoans themselves.
Culture
References to culture were used to make the reforms more palatable—not as much in the Cook
Islands as in Samoa. In Samoa, there was a successful blending of Fa’a Samoa (Samoan cultural
values) and the Western model of reform. Samoans are a proud people and there is a lot of pride
displayed in asserting Fa’a Samoa. Cabinet papers are written and parliamentary debates are
conducted in the Samoan vernacular. It was reported in the interviews that, during the reform
process, discussions were held in the Samoan vernacular even in the presence of non-Samoan
consultants. The consultants would be asked questions in English and the discussions would revert to
Samoan.
Overcoming Resistance to the Reforms
In Samoa, the reforms were primarily resisted by civil servants, who were under the threat of job
losses resulting from the reduction of ministries. Ten CEOs lost their jobs as a result of the reforms.
When the HRPP government introduced the value-added goods and services tax, it was met with
street protest marches. Further protest marches were held in 1997 and 1998 in efforts to oust the
HRPP government. However, due to the political will and support of the cabinet and
parliamentarians, the reforms were pushed through.
Redundancies were minimized by redeployment. Although there was resistance to the use of
employment contracts for senior management, opening up the top two levels of CEO and assistant
4
A term used to describe expectations of government to continually provide as in the role of a mother.
Political Economy and Championing Reforms in the Cook Islands and Samoa
107
CEO by putting people on 3-year performance contracts created career paths. Pay increases as high
as 46% have also made public service positions more attractive.
Poor performance by government workers has hindered the implementation of reforms and
development projects. The introduction of performance contracts for the top two management levels
of government and a robust appraisal system were introduced to promote better civil service
performance. External advertising of job vacancies made these positions more competitive and not
exclusive to civil servants. Earlier in the reform process, there was an explicit strategy to recruit young
graduates and New Zealand–born Samoans as part of the strategy of opening up to competition.
Most of those interviewed in the Cook Islands recalled the reforms as a very painful part of
their history. They considered that the government had put national interest over families and
individuals. Many had begun to resist the reforms but were threatened with removal if they did not
“toe the line.”
A lot of problems were experienced. New CEOs were expected to take up their positions
without training. There was confusion and conflict in the changing responsibilities of PSC and the
powers devolved to the HOMs. There was devolution of services to the outer islands with the
appointment of an island secretary; but, again, with no training, it broke down in the first year.
The study found that many had at first welcomed the introduction of the reforms, but then
realized the problems that came with the process. The HOMs and CEOs were given substantial
powers and responsibilities in terms of public resources and public funds. They could approve their
own travel, approve purchases of goods and services, engage consultants, hire and fire, reward staff
with bonuses, accept tenders, and so forth. The HOMs are appointed by the cabinet but have an
employment contract with the Public Service Commissioner. Their performance agreement is signed
with the minister. This led to conflict between contractual obligations and political patronage. There
were allegations of the HOMs abusing and mismanaging public resources and recruiting employees
based on nepotism rather than merit. Employees who did not follow instructions given by the
HOMs, engaged in corrupt practices, or reported corrupt practices were threatened or, in most cases,
were fired. Other current areas of concern are the lack of legislation, financial instructions, and
guidelines, and the need to develop financial management procedures that make the HOMs
accountable for their actions. For example, there are no provisions in the Finance Act that penalize
the HOMs for overspending budgets or deviating from priority needs. This encourages the HOMs
to do whatever they wish, as they know that they will not be held accountable for their actions.
Consequently, all of these factors had a detrimental impact on the delivery of goods and services to
the public.
Many people lost their jobs in the public sector. Redundancy reached 60%. A key
component of the ERP involved the establishment of a transition service with ancillary projects
funded through New Zealand assistance. Transition services included retraining assistance, small
business advice, other private sector initiatives, and a community action program that mobilized
village-level community support structures. The transition assistance measures were implemented
from March 1996 to June 1997 to respond to the first round of redundancies in July 1996.
However, it was reported that most Cook Islanders receiving redundancy packages did not take
advantage of the transition assistance but left for New Zealand.
Public Consultation, Participation, and Ownership
In Samoa, wide public consultations and an effective public relations strategy contributed to broad
acceptance of the reforms. There was strong communication of the purposes and nature of the
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economic reforms, specifically the formulation and dissemination of the Statement of Economic
Strategy. This involved a public information campaign with the participation of the local financial
community, which generally approved of the finance sector reforms and expressed satisfaction with
the consultative process. Meetings were held in Samoan to explain the benefits of the reform
program. Evidence of infrastructure development such as airports, roads, and bridges helped to
convince the public of the benefits of the reforms.
Processes were undertaken to plan, design, and implement the reforms. There was a Cabinet
Steering Committee that provided oversight and kept the cabinet well informed. The close liaison
between the officials, including ensuring that supporting legislation was aligned to the reforms,
worked well.
In the Cook Islands, a marked feature of the reform approach was the effort to achieve
collective ownership of the reforms through national retreats. In March 1996, aware of the
impending cash flow crisis, the government called together a grouping of concerned private sector
and community representatives to discuss the issue. Out of that meeting came a clear signal from the
community that they would cooperate in finding a solution to the economic crisis if government
would consider their views and concerns in developing a reform package. This meeting heralded the
beginning of annual national retreats to discuss common concerns and reconcile differences.
The first national retreat was a 3-day national “brainstorming” held at the Rarotongan
Hotel in March 1996, tasked among other things to consider the speed of public service reduction
and cutbacks in government expenditure. Participants included various stakeholders—
businesspeople, trade unionists, traditional leaders, government officials, and representatives of the
wider community. They formed working groups to generate proposals to deal with the crisis. The
working group of businesspeople suggested ways of reducing government expenditure; the Cook
Islands Public Service Association–led group developed an efficient public service; and a third group
submitted proposals for labor market and public sector reforms.
During the retreat, it became apparent to the government that they could not afford the
luxury of a 3-year period during which to cut back government expenditure. The expenditure
reductions would have to be achieved within one financial year. Salaries and wages would have to be
cut by over 50%, and across-the-board cuts were proposed for all government departments in the
latter part of the 1995/96 financial year. As a result, the government endorsed the fast tracking of the
ERP.
From this locally owned process a broad consensus was reached on actions to deal with the
crisis. This process also led to the preparation of the reform document Path to Recovery: The Reform
Agenda.
In the interview, Sir Geoffrey made reference to the retreat:
We envisaged the creation of a national development council with representatives
from the private sector, businesses, Ariki, sub-chiefs, and NGOs [nongovernment
organizations]. This was an open budget process. In the past, the budget was a secret;
no one knew until budget night. At the retreat, we all looked at it, tore it apart
before the formal budget document went to Cabinet. It became clear to me that we
had for some time been following the New Zealand process. So what we actually did
was talanoa, 5 consulted, sought differences, shared our common vision, and shared
the journey. In undertaking reforms, it is always important to go to the people—the
ones feeling the pain to speak up.
5
A Polynesian term for telling stories and exchanging ideas in a nonconfrontational setting.
Political Economy and Championing Reforms in the Cook Islands and Samoa
109
In 1997, the government, acting on community recommendations, set up the National
Development Council, which comprised representatives from the broad spectrum of society. Among
other policy and advisory responsibilities, it became a prime concern of this body to oversee the
annual budget appropriations to the various ministries. In effect, this action affirmed the
government’s commitment to better transparency and accountability in managing national affairs.
The main benefit of these opportunities for broader community consultation has been the
increased social contact between government and the community on affairs of the state.
Contributions of Nongovernment Organizations and Civil Society
NGOs in Samoa operate under SUNGO—the Samoan Umbrella of NGOs. There is general
agreement on the importance of a well-led and fully empowered umbrella organization and SUNGO
has earned recognition as a strong, vibrant organization providing excellent leadership, resources, and
essential human resource development and training for all NGOs. SUNGO’s efforts have been
recognized for increasing NGO accountability and record keeping and enabling access to essential
funding from donors including AusAID, the European Union (EU), Japan, New Zealand Aid
Programme (NZAID), and many other international institutions and NGOs. For example, SUNGO
has been actively involved with Oxfam in advising the government on the country’s continuing
World Trade Organization (WTO) accession, as well as the Economic Partnership Agreement
negotiations with the EU.
While NGOs contribute to shaping strategies adopted by the government, SUNGO feels
that although there has been a greater attempt by the government to consult with NGOs, it is largely
to rubber-stamp what the government has already decided (Fa’atavaa-Vavatau 2009).
As the process of government reform continues and ministries implement their mandates
around policy and planning activities, partnerships are being formalized with nongovernment
implementation agencies. NZAID’s provision of institutional strengthening and financial
management programs for NGOs provides a sound foundation for these partnerships, as does the
government’s review of funding arrangements and its consideration of establishing a pooled fund of
donor contributions for NGOs.
The downsizing of the Cook Islands public service led to an increased role for service
providers in the private and community sectors. For instance, NGOs such as the Red Cross, Child
Welfare, National Council of Women, and the Punanga Tauturu (a women's counseling and refuge
center) stepped in to offer key services and programs that once were the responsibility of government
ministries. The National Council of Women worked alongside the Women's Division to implement
the National Policy for Women on the outer islands and in the three main villages on Rarotonga.
The Child Welfare organization supported and managed the public health arm of community clinics
for mothers and babies in villages and islands. The Red Cross and other health-related NGOs
conducted health training workshops throughout the country.
The Cook Islands Association of Non-Government Organisations is not functioning
effectively; it has little recognition and funding support from government and donors.
Potential Sources of Instability
The study found that the HRPP’s hold on power in Samoa since 1985 is leading to some disquiet.
There is a view that the government has been in power for too long and does what it wants. The
recent road switch is a classic example: despite strong opposition from the public and the business
community, the government is said to have railroaded it through. Only time will tell whether the
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
HRPP is able to withstand such opposition, as it has over the past 18 years. The recent formation of
the PASS movement and the new political parties reflect mounting public opposition and it will be
interesting to see how this will be manifested in the 2011 elections.
Another potentially explosive issue that has raised opposition, especially from NGOs, is the
land lease project, which is exploring options for the leasing of land, including customary land. A
strong view expressed, upon which opposition is based, is that land will be lost to big businesses.
Although there have been public consultations, it is hard to persuade villagers to give up their land
for investment and there is growing opposition to land registration.
This study found the shared view that there are aspects of the financial reforms that have
neither been fully undertaken nor completed, such as the privatization of state-owned enterprises and
complete decentralization of the authority exercised by the Ministry of Finance and Treasury. In
particular, CEOs in the line ministries have not been given the full financial delegation promised.
There are questions of whether the benefits of the reforms have trickled down to the villages
and communities. Some of those interviewed argued that a social impact assessment study is
warranted to gauge this. The institutional strengthening of the Ministry of Women, Community
and Social Development is intended to roll out capacity strengthening activities to the village
councils in support of the reforms. This will be an interesting development to watch.
5. Looking Forward
Samoan Outlook
Samoa continues to enjoy political stability and demonstrate an ongoing commitment to good
economic management. Given the positive results from its reform program, Samoa appears to have
laid much of the groundwork for continued good economic performance. The challenge is to build
on its achievements to enhance the environment for private sector-led growth.
A review of the private sector development issues in Samoa (Holden and Darcy 2007)
concluded that most of the macroeconomic reforms are complete and the key issues identified to be
addressed for further growth are as follows:
„
Expand private sector participation to promote growth and reduce the role of the state,
which still plays too large a role in the economy and raises the cost of doing business.
„
Strengthen property ownership within the land leasing framework, which affects large areas
of the economy, particularly finance, agriculture, and tourism.
„
Simplify procedures for foreign investors; introduce a new Arbitration Act that provides for
low-cost enforceability of foreign arbitral awards; reduce barriers to employing skilled
foreign workers, who bring vital knowledge into the economy; make land leases easily
available to foreign investors; eliminate investment incentives; and compete for foreign
direct investment by making Samoa a low-cost country in which to do business.
„
Continue with extensive consultations and expand formal discourse between the
government and the private sector.
Ongoing reforms are included in the framework for economic and social development
outlined in the Strategy for the Development of Samoa 2008–2012. The strategy identifies seven key
development priorities: (i) sustained macroeconomic stability; (ii) private sector–led economic
growth and employment creation; (iii) improved education outcomes; (iv) improved health
Political Economy and Championing Reforms in the Cook Islands and Samoa
111
outcomes; (v) community development, including improved village governance; (vi) improved
public sector governance; and (vii) environmental sustainability and disaster risk reduction.
Cook Islands Outlook
While there were positive results from its earlier reform program, the economic outlook indicates
that the Cook Islands will be struggling to maintain its good performance. Its narrow economic base
(underpinned by tourism and marine resources) makes it vulnerable to external shocks, including the
global economic crisis. Many still question the value of the economic reform program with respect to
delivery of services, especially to the outer islands. Depopulation continues as a major problem, with
Cook Islanders continuing to leave for abroad, especially to New Zealand. The government now
faces the challenge of building on its achievements to enhance the environment for private sector–led
growth. In August 2009, Standard and Poor’s downgraded its outlook for the Cook Islands from
stable to negative due to uncertainty about prospective tourism numbers and the country’s increased
debt exposure.
As in Samoa, the study found that there are questions as to whether the benefits of the
reforms have been fully realized and trickled down to the outer islands and to local communities. A
number of study participants advocated for a social impact assessment study to determine this.
The people on the outer islands lead a largely subsistence lifestyle and outer islands
development is a priority for the current government. Economic growth is restrained by the
geographic isolation and dispersion of small population centers among many remote islands. The
distance from markets and high transport costs restrict export activity.
The National Sustainable Development Plan (2007–2010) set out to achieve the 15-year
visionary framework called Living the Cook Islands Vision: A 2020 Challenge. The plan sets out the
national vision and identifies strategic outcomes and priority goals for implementation. The plan
recognizes the importance of private sector–led economic growth to meet the government’s goal of
economic growth averaging at least 3.5% per year over the medium and long term to double GDP
(to NZ$600 million) by 2020. It is recognized that the economy is based only on a few industries
and is highly susceptible to external forces. The Cook Islands has limited scope to expand or diversify
its economic base, although there may be potential for deep-sea mining of manganese nodules. At
the time of the field study, a public presentation was held by Ministry of Finance and Economic
Management with Commonwealth Secretariat legal advisers commenting on the resource
management implications of this resource.
6. Conclusions: Lessons Learned
The important lessons drawn from this study are as follows:
Reforms are championed by determined and visionary leaders
In both the Cook Islands and Samoa, strong political leadership saw the reforms through.
Additionally, continuity in leadership is crucial for an enabling reform environment. The chances of
successful implementation are increased in a stable political environment in which the champions of
reform can remain focused and do not have to risk jeopardizing the aims of reform to retain power.
Shared leadership is also important. There must be political will for the reform policies and, equally
important, they must be supported by technically competent and professionally qualified executives
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
and managers who can drive the reforms from the top down and operationalize them through the
machinery of the government, as was the case in Samoa.
Local ownership is vital for successfully implementing reforms
In the Cook Islands, the process was locally owned through sustained dialogue with multiple
stakeholder groups. Shared responsibility for the reforms was achieved through participatory public
consultations and national retreats. The national retreats brought stakeholders together to determine
the implementation of the reforms. In Samoa, culture was the foundation for sustaining reforms.
Samoa developed its own model of development in which they have been able to package reform
with a strong and proud Samoan identity. In both countries the sense of self-determination and
taking ownership of their development featured prominently.
The “big bang” versus the phased approach
While both countries achieved improved economic growth as a result of the reforms, there were two
distinct approaches. Samoa followed the Australian model of sequencing and pacing public sector
reforms in a phased rightsizing approach with minimal redundancies, while the Cook Islands
followed New Zealand’s “big bang” radical downsizing approach that halved the public service
virtually overnight, leading to mass emigration, an exodus of skills, and continued depopulation,
primarily due to New Zealand citizenship.
Size matters
The design of reform programs needs to pay more attention to the consequences of small size and the
unique features of each country’s economic and social structures. It should also be aware of the
diverse views and experiences in the area of public sector management and assess their relevance for
small states.
Civil society has an essential role in economic reforms
The study found that civil society has an essential role to play in sustaining reforms, particularly in
advocating and meeting community needs. This is especially true at the village and community levels
where the state and the business sector are limited in their reach. Reform should not be the exclusive
domain of the state but rather a shared and collective responsibility, as was effectively mobilized in
the case of the Cook Islands.
Political Economy and Championing Reforms in the Cook Islands and Samoa
113
References
Asian Development Bank (ADB). 1995. Cook Islands 1995 Economic Report. Manila.
———. 1996. Cook Islands: Economic Performance, Issues, and Strategies—Update. Manila.
———. 2007. Continuing Growth and Stability: Samoa Social and Economic Report 2007 (Final
Report). Manila.
———. Revamping the Cook Islands Public Sector. Manila.
Bourne, I. Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of Samoa. Personal interview, February 2009.
Burdekin, R.C.K. 2008. Currency Board vs Dollarization: Lessons from the Cook Islands. Cato
Journal. 28(1). pp. 101–115.
Cook Islands Party. Manifesto of the Cook Islands Party. http://www.cookislandsparty.org.ck/
Davis, T., ed. 1979. Cook Islands Politics: The Inside Story. New Zealand: Polynesian Press.
Duncan, R., and N. Haruo. Obstacles to Economic Growth in Six Pacific Island Countries. World
Bank.
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTDEBTDEPT/Resources/468980-1206974166266/
4833916-1206989877225/DuncanNakagawaObstacles.pdf
Economic Insights. 1998. An Economic Evaluation of the Cook Islands Restructuring Program.
Consultancy report to ADB. Manila.
Fau’tauvaa-Vavatau, R. Chief Executive Officer, Samoa Umbrella of NGOs (SUNGO). Personal
interview, February 2009.
Government of the Cook Islands. 2007. Te Kaveinga Nui. Pathway for Sustainable Development in
the Cook Islands. National Sustainable Development Plan 2007–2010.
Government of the Cook Islands Statistics Office. 2003. Cook Islands 2001 Census Report of
Population and Dwelling (Main Report). Rara’tonga.
Government of Samoa. 2002. Strategy for the Development of Samoa 2002-2004: Opportunities for All.
Treasury Department, Economic Policy and Planning Division, Apia.
Holden, P., and L. Darcy. 2007. Samoa: Consolidating Reform for Faster Growth. Private Sector
Assessment Report. Manila: ADB. www.adb.org/Documents/Reports/PSA/SAM/PSA-SAM.pdf
Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP). 2001. HRPP Manifesto. www.samoalive.com/hrrp_
manifesto.hm
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Kelekolio, M. Acting Chief Executive Officer, Public Service Commission. Personal interview,
February 2009.
Knapman, B., and C. Saldanha. 1999. Reforms in the Pacific: An Assessment of the Asian Development
Bank’ Assistance for Reform Programmes in the Pacific. Manila: ADB. www.adb.org/documents/books/
reforms_pacific/chap5.pdf
Luaiufi, F. Dr. M. Former Chief Executive Officer, Public Service Commission. Personal interview,
February 2009.
Telefoni, M. 2007. What Makes States Work: The Development and Reform Experience of Samoa.
www.mcil.gov.ws
Sialaoa, A. 2003. The Samoa Economy. Pacific Economic Bulletin. Vol. 18, No. 2. pp. 1–19.
Tafuna’i, A. Executive Director, Women in Business Inc. Personal interview, February 2009.
Wichman, V. 1998. Social Impact of the Economic Reform Program. In Pacific Islands REF Report #
32261 EAP. Washington, DC: World Bank.
Wikipedia Online. The People’s Party. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People's_Party
———. Politics of the Cook Islands. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_Cook_Islands
———. Tautua Samoa Party. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tautua_Samoa_Party
———. Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuilaepa_Aiono_Sailele
_Malielegaoi
32
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
6 Presidential Perspectives
on Political Economy
in Micronesia
by Giff Johnson and Ben Graham
ABSTRACT
In this landmark study, five former presidents of three Micronesian countries—the Republic of the
Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of Palau—were interviewed
to gain an appreciation of their insights into the political economy of these states and their
experiences with attempts to implement economic reforms. The former presidents stressed that
reform proponents need to be cognizant of the pervasive and long-standing “welfare state” attitudes
developed over many years of the United States’ (US) Compact aid and the way in which these
attitudes shape perceptions about the role of government and the direction of national development.
Because the challenges to reform and economic development in Micronesia are so significant,
development partners should consider the need for longer horizons on reform and development
projects. Coupled with this, consultative processes are extremely important throughout all stages of
the reform process, from initial planning and design of reforms through to implementation and
evaluation. Congruence and alignment in understanding and expectations among the key
stakeholder groups can help facilitate reforms and change.
1. Study Background, the Presidents, and the Countries 1
The political economy landscapes of the three Micronesian states of the Republic of the Marshall
Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), and the Republic of Palau are relatively
unmapped. Navigating this unfamiliar territory has frustrated and challenged a number of reform
efforts (and their proponents) over the past 2 decades. The aim of this analysis is to explore and chart
out the key political economy issues in Micronesia and to address the important question—how does
the political economy of Micronesia impact on its economic growth and development?
1
Country background information from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) website’s (www.adb.org) country information
pages.
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
To help answer this question, the authors took the unusual approach of documenting the
opinions and experiences of five former Micronesian presidents. Having served as the chief executives
and heads of state of their countries, the presidents are in the special position of being able to provide
detailed insights into the political economy of change in their societies. The authors conducted
structured interviews, guided by a set interview questionnaire.
The five presidents interviewed were
„
The Honorable Joseph J. Urusemal, the FSM’s sixth president from 2003 to 20007;
„
The Honorable John R. Haglelgam, the FSM’s second president from 1987 to 1991;
„
The Honorable Tommy E. Remengesau, Jr., Palau’s sixth president from 2001 to 2009;
„
The Honorable Imata Kabua, the Marshall Islands’ second president from 1997 to 2000;
and
„
The Honorable Kessai H. Note, the Marshall Islands’ third president from 2000 to 2008.
Palau is located in the Western Pacific on the western end of the Caroline Archipelago,
about 900 kilometers (km) east of the Philippines. Situated in the Micronesian group of islands, the
Caroline chain consists of six island groups totaling more than 300 islands. The islands vary
geologically from the high mountainous main island of Babeldaob to low coral islands usually
fringed by large barrier reefs. Only nine of the islands are inhabited. Babeldaob is the largest island
and accounts for 78% of the country’s total land area of 458 square kilometers (km2). A bridge links
Babeldaob to the capital, Koror. Koror is the largest urban area in Palau and home to more than
70% of the population of 19,000.
The FSM is a grouping of 607 small islands in the Western Pacific, about 4,023 km
southwest of Hawaii, and lying just above the equator. Generally speaking, the FSM comprises what
is known as the Eastern and Western Caroline Islands. While the country's total land area amounts
to only 701.4 km2, it occupies more than 2.5 million km2 of the Pacific Ocean. The FSM’s 107,008
people inhabit its confederation of four states—Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei, and Yap. Each of the four
states centers around one or more “high islands,” and all but Kosrae include numerous atolls. Each
state has its own government, language(s), culture, and identity.
The Marshall Islands is located in the central Pacific Ocean, some 5,960 kilometers
southwest of Hawaii. It is composed of two nearly parallel chains of low coral limestone and sand
islands known as the Ratak (sunrise) group and the Ralik (sunset) group. There are 1,152 small
islands and 30 atolls in all, dispersed over an exclusive economic zone of 1.2 million km2 of ocean.
The total land area is only 181 km2, but 70% of its 57,000 population of ethnic Micronesians is
concentrated on the atolls of Majuro and Ebeye. The remainder lives on 19 outer islands, with most
having fewer than 500 residents.
2. Introduction: Setting the Stage
Pervasive and long-standing “welfare state” attitudes are a challenge that shapes voter perceptions
about the role of government and national development, and influences the decision making of
leaders in the US-affiliated members of the Pacific Freely Associated States (FAS): the Marshall
Islands, the FSM, and Palau. These attitudes developed as an outgrowth of World War II and US
military largesse, and were heightened by US government development policies in the 1960s and
1970s. Thirty years after the three island nations achieved self-governing status, the attitudes
persist—supported by highly aid-dependent economies. In the three countries, US funding accounts
for a majority of the government’s budgetary support. In the Marshall Islands, for example, US
Presidential Perspectives on Political Economy in Micronesia
117
grants, federal programs, rental payments for use of the Kwajalein missile range, and contributions to
a trust fund account for nearly two-thirds of the fiscal year (FY) 2010 budget. All donor aid
(including funding by the European Union [EU] and Taipei,China) accounts for 75% of the
FY2010 national budget.
In the FSM, policies encouraging a dependency mentality are not uniform: while some
islands provide health care virtually free, Yap, for example, charges a $60 per day inpatient fee. In the
Marshall Islands, a majority of government services—shipping, health care, electricity, and water, to
name a few—are heavily subsidized.
One of the presidents commented: “A welfare state... became an institutional expectation...
We’ve been stuck with all these freebees for a long time. The problem today is twofold: (i) lack of
resources and money [to sustain the subsidies]; and (ii) it is hard to eliminate those freebees—even
though they may be able to live without them, people now seem to expect them. That’s the
transformation that needs to take place.”
Another president said, “Many people do think that resources are unlimited,” and added
that government-appropriated discretionary funds “help fuel the cycle of patronage.” But
dependence on government may also be exacerbated by unfounded perceptions of elected leaders.
The president observed, “Sometimes politicians think people need something when they actually
don’t.” A third president cited “nepotism” as a problem throughout government.
Still, all five presidents recognized the need for change. “People know we have to change
and to provide more for ourselves... How fast we can do it, that’s the challenge.” Another president
commented, “It’s up to us to change.”
The presidents agree that despite stated goals to promote development and economic selfsufficiency, the Compact of Free Association (COFA) with the US is having a limited impact on
economic development. Primary concerns are the lack of capital in the compact for private sector
development and the unsustainable spending on education and health care. A significant challenge
facing the local private sector in its attempts to develop or expand is access to capital. In Compact I,
there was funding specifically designated for private sector development that was channeled through
development banks, but at the time there was little local expertise and capacity to guide economic
development. The record of the first compact shows few results from the development capital
injected into the economy. Nevertheless, during Compact I, from 1986–2003, many FAS citizens
went to college in the US or gained employment, expanding their knowledge and experience. Now
that capacity levels have increased in FAS populations, there is no development funding available in
Compact II for the private sector to access.
One president believes that his nation is worse off in 2009 than it was before donorsupported reform programs were launched in the 1990s. Another believes that elected representatives
need to be held more accountable for their election promises. “That’s the reform I’d like to see:
people held accountable for what they promised or said they’d do. At some point, some kind of
review process.” The independent media is also essential in this process. “This is where the media is
very important. We have free access to the media to criticize and grade people,” the president said.
Another president said dwelling on the past is not productive. “Yes, we can reform,” he said.
“We can’t blame anyone else or expect others to do it for us.” But he made an important point about
using consultants and advisors: “We can bring in outsiders to help us, but we can’t let them be ‘boss’
in our own country.” Commenting on fragmentation among leadership in his country, the president
said, “Those who know—traditional leaders, religious leaders—they should speak up about the need
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
for improvements. Stronger cooperation between government, traditional, and religious leaders will
help.”
The issue of local ownership of change at the grassroots level cannot be neglected. One
president pointed out that reform programs require public understanding and that the public must
be convinced that change is required.
In past reform projects, the objectives of the reforms sometimes conflicted with objectives of
other donor-supported projects or with the goals of the national government. For example, a reform
program in the late 1990s focused on cutting about 30% of the government workforce in one FAS
country to reduce the payroll burden in line with decreasing aid from the US. But this was at odds
with the government’s focus on the education and health sectors. So while reduction-in-force targets
of the reform program were reached within a year, the number of government employees was
increasing in these two ministries to meet shortcomings in service delivery. “In lieu of the $10
million public sector reform program, wouldn’t it be better to put in a cannery that could employ
600 people?” the president asked. “Now we’re stuck with $10 million in loan payments... Most
businesses want government involved, to provide security for establishing themselves. This is the role
the government should have played.”
An important question is, who drives development and reform–project decision making?
Because donors have their own aid priorities, they frequently make the decisions about specific
amounts of money to provide to each nation, timetables, and deadlines for implementation. The
effectiveness and sustainability of development projects can be jeopardized by a range of factors,
including donors accepting a country’s “yes” at face value, a lack of understanding of subtleties of the
local sociopolitical environment, and misinterpretation of the expectations and needs of aid
recipients.
The lack of ownership of projects at the implementing and receiving end often dooms them
to failure or, at best, to modest and unsustainable results. Two presidents expressed concern about
short-term (3–4 year) development projects that provide funding for government staff to implement
the work, but leave the FAS government stuck with a personnel bill at the end of the project because
those staff must be rolled onto the government’s payroll when the project period ends.
“There is a problem with short-term grants,” said one president. “A 3- to 4-year grant is
accepted and implemented. When it ends, we can’t just lay off the people hired under the grant.
While the grant is here, it is helpful. But then we are stuck with the bill [to hire staff onto the
government’s payroll].”
Parity between FAS nations and donors is another issue. One president believes the
COFA—a bilateral treaty underpinning the relationship between the US and the three FAS member
states—encourages dependence, despite its stated objective to increase self-reliance. This, he said, is
the result of inequality in the relationship. “The compact promotes dependence,” he said. He
continued that while the compact establishes the relationship, it “is not an equal relationship; one is
higher than the other,” and so there is a built-in dependence in the pact.
The same president raised concerns about the focus of development projects and
government priorities. Although there is often talk about assisting development of remote outer
islands, budgets and donor aid rarely address development needs in “rural” islands where a high
degree of self-reliance still exists. Projects that are aimed at outer islands sometimes deliver
infrastructure that is not sustainable or adequately thought out. “A good example of that is fishery ice
plants,” said another president. “They put up infrastructure in some of the villages, but in some there
Presidential Perspectives on Political Economy in Micronesia
119
are only two or three fishermen, so the ice plant ends up being used for social functions rather than
for the primary purpose of fishing.”
Development work in the FAS tends to neglect outer island populations, agriculture, and
young people—who account for disproportionately large segments of the FAS populations. “We
need to prioritize outer island development, agriculture, and development projects that raise our selfreliance,” said one president. “We need to also focus on our youth and their challenges with youthtargeted projects. There’s a lot of neglect.” He pointed out that on one island, “I see young children
playing by themselves near the road, and sometimes vehicles come along and hit them because no
one is watching for them.”
The “Compact Road” in Palau—an 85 km road around Babeldaob, Palau’s largest island—
was identified as a major factor for the future development of the country. “Look at the $150 million
Compact Road from the United States,” said one president. “Who can argue what the impact of this
is going to be?” Other important infrastructure work includes a fisheries dock, power plants, and
roads. “No question they are a critical part of our progress,” said the president. The type of aid
provided by Taipei,China is significantly more beneficial than that provided by the People’s
Republic of China (PRC), said two of the presidents. Taipei,China provides funding for agriculture
and fisheries development involving local farmers and fishermen, and provides grants to the national
government for construction projects using local construction companies. In contrast, aid from the
PRC is mostly in the form of low-interest loans or construction work accomplished entirely by PRC
firms, labor, and supplies, to the virtual exclusion of any local benefit of the aid other than the final
product.
3. Hindsight and Insights: Reflections on Past Reforms
The Reasons and Incentives for Reform
Reforms in all three nations were largely in response to fiscal pressures. In the Marshall Islands and
the FSM, reforms were undertaken to adjust to imminent and significant downturns in compact
funding during the compact’s second funding step-down in FY1997. “We knew we had to reform,
there was no choice,” said one president. Another explained, “The incentives? It was clear that if no
reforms were made, the government couldn’t afford to support the same number of posts, due to the
step-down on the horizon. There was uncertainty on the horizon, and concerns that the compact
would end, so reforms made the adjustments less painful.”
The Relevance and Overall Success of Past Reforms
The presidents had mixed feelings about the overall relevance and success of past reform efforts, in
particular the major public sector reform programs that took place in the Marshall Islands and the
FSM in the late 1990s and early 2000s. While the immediate objective of fiscal adjustment, achieved
mostly through expenditure reductions, was met in the Marshall Islands and the FSM, the presidents
believed that there was less success in other areas, and also that some of the reform objectives did not
fully capture other necessary important reform requirements—such as raising civil service
productivity and improving state-owned enterprises. As one president stated, “I think [the reforms
were] generally successful. Under the reduction-in-force [program] we did a good job in reducing
employees and wage costs, but the transition from public sector to the private sector for some was
less successful, especially the efforts of government to help individuals during their transition to
establish good businesses. Some started businesses but most didn’t succeed.”
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Another president pointed to political self-interest as having been a problem. “This [the
Public Sector Reform Program] was a real chance for us to introduce major reforms. But some
politicians used the reforms as a means to grant favors, for example, the Early Retirement Program.
This was used politically... The opportunity for major reforms was lost due to political self-interest.”
A third president acknowledged that while the immediate goal of the reform programs was
to reduce spending, there were other goals that were not met. “The purpose for the loan was
accepted: the aim was to bring down the payroll and the number working in government... [But] the
Public Sector Reform Program did not support other goals of the government.”
The Effects and Effectiveness of Reduction-in-Force Actions
Reduction-in-force (RIF) actions had significant social, economic, and political impacts and were
considered the most sensitive and painful component of the reforms. One president felt that
reducing wages may have been a more useful way to reduce expenditures, versus cutting jobs
outright. “I think the RIF exercises were not an easy thing. It would be easier to reduce salaries. At
least the person has some level of income that he can use to sustain his family, versus losing his job
altogether. What about their loans? Their store credits?” The reforms and RIF actions “resulted in
some politicians being voted out of office,” according to one president.
Social and cultural factors may not have been considered sufficiently in reform and RIF
timetables. This was particularly so in the RMI [Republic of Marshall Islands], as explained by one
president: “Many factors affected the reform program, including Marshallese culture. When we
design a program [of reform], it takes time. It may take longer to do, but if it’s bringing change, it
needs to be step-by-step. If we have to lay off people, then do it slowly. Otherwise, people will
become rebellious. There is not much of an economic safety net in the RMI. There is no welfare or
unemployment system here. If you lose your job, that’s the end of the road. This is why we saw big
out-migration to the United States when people got their RIF money in 1999 and again when the
big Nuclear Claims Tribunal payment was made in 2001.”
Resisting Reforms
Resistance to reforms came from a range of sources, with some outside of government expressing
skepticism over the fiscal adjustment component of the reforms being only a temporary solution.
“There was major resistance, but we had to do it!” said one president. Another stated, “Many people
expressed concerns about the reforms being a short-term fix.” Elected officials who felt that their
political careers would be jeopardized also resisted reforms; for many, the reforms, especially the RIF,
were seen as “political suicide.” Some civil servants also resisted reforms, with one president
explaining, “The public service is very slow moving. You can feel resistance to change... The
parliamentary system of government contributes to it. The ministers are only there for a short time,
Secretaries are there forever [so they may feel they do not need to implement policy changes they
disagree with as the ministers may not be there long enough to oversee the change].”
Consultations Helped Overcome Some Resistance
Despite the resistance, there was a general consensus, especially in the Marshall Islands and the FSM,
that reforms were unavoidable. Nevertheless, public consultations helped overcome some anxiety and
resistance. “Good programs are not always popular,” said one president. “You have to sell it to the
public and seek public understanding.” Another president added that public hearings are an effective
medium to explain why difficult decisions have to be made.
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However, there were mixed feelings on the extent and effectiveness of public consultations
leading up to the reforms, with one president stating that the consultative process in his country was
insufficient, both for the general public and within the government itself.
Congruence in Understanding and Expectations Helped
Where there was congruence in understanding and expectations between leaders and the public,
reforms seemed to have progressed more smoothly. This was the case even with smaller reform
efforts versus larger structural reform exercises, such as ongoing efficiency-raising reforms that Palau
undertook. “We and the people knew that to increase efficiency in government, some of these
policies needed to be in place. So it was a popular thing for us to sell. When we introduced it, we
told the people, explained it to the ministers and directors, and people were basically on board and
the more they knew about it, the more excited they were.”
Common road maps helped align expectations. In the Marshall Islands and the FSM,
national summits helped align expectations, and in Palau this was brought about by the adoption of
a management action plan. “That was the Bible for each of the ministries in government. They saw
this performance budget as a tool to address the [action plan] goals. Everything was synchronized
toward the objective. It made acceptance easier.”
But at the same time, despite widespread acknowledgment of the need for reform, there
were those who supported reforms so long as they (themselves) were not directly affected. One
president elaborated on this sentiment, found among some in the public and in government: “It was
good as long as the change didn’t affect me, as long as you don’t lay off my relative.”
Economic Summits, Task Forces, and Effective Technical Advisors were Key
In all three Micronesian states, economic and social summits and other forms of public consultation
were particularly helpful in gathering public input and participation. “The summits helped, along
with the leadership meetings [at the state and national levels], in getting the public involved as much
as possible, even in the remote islands, and educating citizens on the need to review progress and
readjusting.”
Some presidents saw the summits as opportunities to reaffirm their own thoughts on
reforms and priorities. As one explained, “The National Economic and Social Summits were
important politically... These reaffirmed what I already knew concerning the priorities for education,
health, outer islands services, infrastructure, etc. I already knew what was needed, but I wanted
people to say it. Through National Economic and Social Summits, people felt part of the process and
contributed ideas, different experiences.” Public consultations were especially important in areas
where media coverage was not very strong, especially in the FSM. “Consultations continue to be very
important, especially in the FSM where an independent media is not readily accessible. The FSM
lacks media to cover issues, so summits and consultations are important.”
In Palau, task forces were used to address issues and come up with policy recommendations.
These task forces, which included traditional chiefs and representatives from the private sector, were
an effective way to ensure that government leaders considered the community’s views. “We used a lot
of task forces to make the idea be felt like a community idea, that it didn’t just come from the
president or a minister. People know about it. The task force membership was the very important to
getting these kinds of reforms off the ground... When people got together, they echoed the same
problems and solutions and so it was easier to tie those expectations to the initiatives.”
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Technical advisors were used to help plan and implement reforms, although the experience
with these advisors varied widely across the islands—with the FSM and Palau presidents generally
more satisfied with the performance of their reform advisors compared with the Marshall Islands
presidents. As one president described the performance of one of his country’s chief reform advisors
who was based in-country, “[He] was one of the reasons why the Public Sector Reform Program
worked. [He] put it straight to you. [His] knowledge of the area and what needed to be done. This
won the support of several key leaders in government.” Another president added, “[The technical
advisory team] was successful in showing the leaders the impacts if nothing was done.”
The Reemergence and Underlying Causes of Fiscal Instability
Expenditure and financial management reforms in all three nations helped stabilize fiscal systems;
but pressures to expand spending have been strong and fiscal stability has reemerged as a key political
economy challenge. Two presidents were fairly bleak in their assessments of current spending
patterns in their countries. “There was money saved by the RIF (reduction-in-force), but some of it
was rechannelled,” said one president. “For example, to the entertainment/representation funds for
[the legislature]... In an economy like this, this is berserk! We’re worse off than before. Spending is
completely out of hand.” Another added, “We are not frugal. We spend a lot on travel and parties.”
The presidents pointed to several underlying factors that have led to the reemergence of
instability. “Economic conditions, the need to find work for our people, especially our younger
generation,” said one president, “these are factors. It’s difficult to find jobs in the private sector. The
challenge... is to strike a balance between the need to find work for our people and the sustainability
of government to find funding for positions. This is a very difficult challenge, as there is pressure to
provide jobs.” Another president added, “We need to determine our immediate wants versus our
needs... It’s hard for presidents to be frugal because they think that doing so will lower their status or
title... A lot of presidents can’t do this because they think it will make them look less presidential.”
But even where economic and private sector growth has been seen, there is still pressure for
fiscal expansion. “We’ve certainly grown, from $12 million local revenue in 1998 to $40 million in
2008,” said one president. “However, the rate of growth has not been commensurate with the
operations cost of the government. It’s just enough for salaries. Who takes care of the roads, power
plant, health, scholarships for our students to go to school?”
The Sustainability of the Reforms
The general feeling among the presidents was that the reforms had limited sustainability, especially
with the fiscal pressures that have reemerged. As one president put it, “Now, we’ve resorted back to
past practices. The reforms did not have a lasting impact.” But as another president noted, while reexpanding spending was not consistent with the reform objectives, this re-expansion was justified, at
least in some areas. “To achieve our goals in education and health we had to add people and
resources... When Compact II was implemented, we needed more people in the Ministry of Finance
to meet reporting requirements. Finance is now the third largest ministry... These needs conflicted
with the Public Sector Reform Program goals. The goals were contradictory: how can we provide
better services without bringing more people in to provide the services?”
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4. Contemporary Political Economy Dynamics in Micronesia
Collective Choice and Decision Making When Good Economics Is Bad Politics
Political leaders often face conflicting situations wherein “good” economic decisions are not
necessarily “good” political decisions. The presidents considered this to be a fundamental political
economy challenge.
“This is a very difficult issue,” said one president. “I’ll use the social security program as an
example... This decision [to reform the program] was made on a fiscal and economic basis. We have
a $200 million unfunded liability. Only 16% of our liability is funded. We’ve had 2 years of public
hearings on this. There’s strong pressure... with people demanding that Congress should put money
into social security. So this is an economic need, but it’s political suicide.”
Sometimes, as one president illustrated, culture and people’s expectations often exacerbate
this political–economic conflict. “On the islands there is always going to be conflict of culture and
reality, culture versus efficiency. Because culture is a broad way to describe how things can be done
inefficiently. The culture requires when you have an occasion, there must be plenty of food—even if
the food is going to be wasted and fed to the dogs; that is a successful function. If you have a
function and people only eat coffee and donuts, or ramen, or there is less fish and taro, that is not a
successful function... This conflicts with the idea of government efficiency.”
“Even when cabinet makes good economic decisions, culturally and politically it is a
problem,” said another president.
Reaching collective choice and gaining public support on an issue that makes good
economic sense on one hand, but may have negative political consequences on the other, requires a
range of approaches, including proactive consultations, perseverance, and sometimes plain, hardnosed negotiation. Efforts must also be made to correct and clarify any misinformation about an
issue or a decision, as this is often a key deterrent to reaching collective choice and gaining public
understanding and support. The presidents elaborated on these points:
“Good programs are not always popular. You have to sell it to the public and seek public
understanding.”
“You need to educate the public to be able to accept [hard choices] because it’s for the good
interest of everyone in the long run.”
“When it comes to difficult political decisions, public hearings should be held so that people
can understand the challenges and why tough decisions have to be taken.”
“When we make decisions, we think what is important for the country as a whole. These
decisions may not be very popular with the public and grassroots level. But the cabinet thinks they
are important. Sometimes cabinet does something that is unpopular and gets criticized. But people
don’t understand—often because of misinformation, which is rampant [here]...”
“More negotiations and dialogue among leaders is needed. Congress must stand strong.”
In one president’s view, however, doing all of these things may not be enough. Structural
arrangements in his country’s Constitution lead to perennial political–economic dilemmas.
“Whatever you do, you have to face the consequences. We need fundamental changes in
government, including the Constitution... If we change the government system, we won’t have to sit
in Parliament and be grilled like we’re in court. Fundamental changes to government will make it
easier to implement change and development without the parliamentary system.”
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Some Constraints to Collective Choice
Leaders often struggle to reach a collective decision on an issue, especially when it is a politically
sensitive issue like reforms. This was best described in an example from one of the presidents
concerning one island: “Nobody wants to take a leading role. Everyone is afraid of not getting
reelected, so nobody does anything. There’s a clientelistic system... where voters are the clients [and
dictate what politicians do]. Families demand goods and favors from politicians.”
Another president cited too much bureaucracy, which, in his opinion, diluted the decisionmaking process and created delays. “It’s a ‘duplicity’ situation. The states are a mini-federal
government. In hindsight, we just bureaucratized ourselves.”
A third president took the opposite view, stating that leaders outside of the executive branch
and cabinet were too weak and accepted whatever collective decisions cabinet made. “There are some
local government leaders, and even some traditional leaders, who are too subservient to the cabinet.
There may be too much concentration of authority in cabinet.”
The Most Powerful Influence Groups in Micronesia
Election outcomes and government decisions and policies, including those regarding development,
are influenced by a range of groups across the islands of Micronesia. “It differs by state,” explained
one president.
The most powerful sources of influence today, according to the presidents, include
traditional leaders (who are especially powerful in places such as the Marshall Islands, Palau,
Pohnpei, and Yap); religious leaders (in most islands, but especially in Kosrae); landowners (again in
most islands; in some cases traditional leaders and landowners are one and the same, but in some
cases they are distinct groups); business owners; and wealthy individuals or families (who sometimes
also belong to one of these other groupings, such as business owners). In several islands, a growing
number of individuals from these different power groups are entering the political arena.
In the Marshall Islands, religious groups and wealthy individuals and families (both local
and nonlocal), appear to be gaining influence. “Church leaders and people with money are really
influencing politicians and politics in the Marshall Islands today,” said one president. Moreover,
many also suspect that outside political interests are gaining influence (or at least attempting to) by
various means.
Nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and community groups are increasing their voice in
public matters, but they remain lower on the influence scale relative to these other groups.
Influence Group Dynamics
In some islands, there is strong competition between and among various influence groups and many
people see the lack of collaborative leadership as a major constraint to development (see Box 6.1 for a
description of nongovernment activities in Micronesia). As one president described the situation on
one island: “There are several centers of power. But when one rises, the others try to knock it down.”
Another president described the rivalries between churches: “Religions are influential, but they need
to work together more. I like to use the example of the cooperation that went on between Father
Hacker [a Jesuit priest] and Mother Wilson [a Protestant missionary]). That was a great example of
religious leaders working together for the common good. Today, the religions are not working
together.”
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Box 6.1: The Role of Nongovernment Organizations
Whereas civil society groups or nongovernment organizations (NGOs) may not yet wield as much
influence over political and economic affairs as do other groups, their voices are growing across
most of Micronesia. “NGOs are increasing their influence in several different areas, including
conservation efforts,” explained one president. In several islands, political leaders have
sometimes considered NGOs to be a threat (including in the Marshall Islands where one
outspoken Parliament member actually advocated the idea of the government itself establishing
an NGO so as to capture some of the new donor funding streams that are bypassing government
and flowing directly to NGOs).
One president described the situation in his country. “Everyone seems to see NGOs as a
threat to government advancement. From day one, we recognized that NGOs could actually do
some of the work that the government is required to do and if they become a partner, it’s a win–
win for everyone. If they become involved, they pursue an area of their concern, while we will be
saving money that our [Environmental Protection Agency] or our conservation officers would be
doing. The key word here is partnership.”
Partnerships and cooperation between NGOs and government are also on the rise. For
example, one president described a partnership that led to conservation of a valuable resource,
Jellyfish Bay, in Palau. “NGOs were the ones to say at Jellyfish Bay there is too much traffic. It was
detrimental to the natural habitat. So for $20,000 a floating dock and office was set up to
monitor who is coming in. But the government didn’t have $20,000. So we said, you do what is
needed to be done. They spent their money to do the dock. We admitted that ‘yes, you are right.
We needed to do something.’ Compare that to the past, we’d just say ‘no,’ and nothing gets
done—government didn’t have money.”
In the Marshall Islands, the rise of organized women’s groups has had a profound impact.
“They have a lot of influence when encouraging the national government to take steps,
demanding [the] RMI [Republic of Marshall Islands] comply with international conventions on
women, health, children, poverty, etc. NGOs play a very important role and provide services with
government funding. They are not just demanding change, but providing services to local
communities. We should encourage this.”
Most presidents were strong advocates for the growth of NGOs as part of the overall
development process. “I support NGOs 100 percent... I have supported NGOs not only through
government, but personally, out of my own pocket.”
Source: Authors' discussions with the Presidents.
Strong Institutions Remain Crucial
The presidents attached great importance to properly functioning institutions (most especially the
courts and offices of the attorney general and auditor general), checks and balances within
government, oversight functions and accountability, and the overall rule of law.
“Those are the cornerstone of what needs to be in place for any country to move forward
and to be able to give the sense of stability and confidence that is required for economic development
to go forward... if we didn’t have steady, reliable courts that are seen as fair, and other institutional
support so people have confidence, nobody would be willing to take the risk to come here,” said one
president. Another echoed these sentiments: “These are very important. The court needs freedom to
function without fear of being penalized for decisions. We support an independent judiciary, not just
for our people. In a globalized world, the donor community looks at us very closely to see how we
are performing.” Another president added, “The public auditor and attorney general are especially
important offices,” while another agreed with “the importance of strengthening these institutions.”
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One of the presidents stressed heavily the importance of a free and fair judiciary, especially
for investment and development. “We know our history when past presidents attempted to influence
the court to make certain rulings for the COFA. Despite threats of violence on the court, it really
applied the rule of law. Business suits that have been heard before our court have been interpreted
based on what the court has before them and not necessarily favoring a local over a foreigner. The
court has been seen as issuing fair decisions. All of these give a secured feeling for investments and
businesses.”
Civil Service Performance Remains a Key Development Constraint
There was unanimous agreement among the presidents on the need to strengthen performance and
raise productivity in the civil service and across the public sector. Numerous analyses have shown
that while the Micronesian states spend more per capita on health, education, and other basic
services relative to other developing countries, their social and economic indicators remain generally
weak. In the presidents’ view, this is due in large part to the underperformance of their government
workers.
In the blunt words of one president, “This is a big problem. Lots of workers are just there to
collect a paycheck.” Another president noted that this “is a monumental issue. Our businesses are
more effective than the government. It’s about habits. People don’t work, but they still get paid.
Why they come to work is to get paid. It really hampers development projects. The unreliability
affects businesses, too... It hampers progress.” Another president casted a wider net beyond just
government workers, identifying low productivity as a problem “in both the public sector and the
private sector. Many government employees are safeguarded and protected under the PSC [Public
Service Commission], it’s difficult to weed out people.”
Another president lamented the abuse of public positions. “Some people use their positions
within government to benefit themselves or their private businesses... People do these things because
they know they can get away with it.”
The presidents offered a range of ideas on how to raise performance and productivity:
“[As president] I instructed cabinet to conduct annual evaluations by supervisors and to use
these to improve performance and even compensation. Performance evaluations are one way to
improve productivity. Service is not at the level that it should be. Personnel offices in national and
state governments should be supervising and mid-management needs to improve. One area of
resistance under the amended compact is the restrictions on the sector grants and performance-based
management. This should be required of not only the compact but of other revenue sources.
Performance-based management should be a proactive process to raise services and performance...
Congress should be able to hold the executive branch to their work. Internal accountability [checks
and balances], we need it here.”
“Leadership and setting an example are ways to improve this.”
“If you stay here for a week and listen to media stations, you’ll hear people call into the
station saying, ‘I saw a government vehicle over the weekend at a funeral, or I saw a government
vehicle at a bar or restaurant after hours.’ Those kinds of things are really helping to keep the
government at bay.”
“In the public service, employees should be on contracts, even secretaries. That is a mistake
in the Constitution. If they’re on contract and they don’t perform, they fire themselves. It’s easy: you
just don’t renew their contracts. If they fire themselves, it makes it easier [to remove
underperforming government workers].”
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“All problems have solutions. The responsibility here lies with the secretaries and the PSC...
People do these things because they are taking advantage of the absence of any punishment. I agree
with the discussion of reforms within the civil service and PSC.”
One president concluded that despite these dire assessments, he himself has seen progress in
recent years. “The government... has always been criticized for taking five people to do a job that
maybe one or two people can do, or putting off work that could be done today until tomorrow, or
getting paid for 8 hours when you are only working 5 or 6 hours. But things have really changed...
The participation of the community in holding their officials to a high standard and a level of
productivity is the key here. It ties into performance output. The more people know what their
expectations should be, they can hold the workers and managers to those expectations.”
How Presidents Obtain Economic Advice and Their Assessment
of the Quality of Advice
Political leaders rely on the advice of others regarding economic, development, legal, and other
matters. The presidents relied on advice from a range of sources, but several expressed concern over
the availability and quality of advice over the years:
“The Department of Economic Affairs was my main advisor. But it had no real economist.
The quality of the advice in my opinion could have been better, but I was satisfied.”
“The government is regressing in terms of lawyers, economists—the quality of legal and
economic advice.”
“I had an economic council that reviewed economic legislation. Sometimes it was very
critical of things I wanted to do. But that was the check and balance I needed. Many things I wanted
to do, they said it was too much. Sometimes I took their advice, others I tried to strike a middle
ground. Congress never really had an economic advisor. They have lawyers. Unfortunately, they rely
too much on those lawyers to do everything. When it comes to Congress, they don’t really have the
resources and whoever was a businessman in the Congress takes the lead in the discussions.”
“We didn’t have economic advisors. But we should have permanent economic advisors—
not one person, but a team.”
“When I was president, I relied primarily on three ministers... I agree with the need to bring
in outside advisors if we need them, but again we must not let them be ‘boss’ in our own country. I
can have a lawyer provide me legal advice, but in the end I am still in charge.”
Several presidents also offered useful insights into what worked and what didn’t work with
respect to economic planning processes:
“One thing government is always guilty of is we do so many economic plans and
development plans and they gather dust on the shelf. One of the resolving things we decided to do
was to get technical assistance to review the plans that we had, and then give us a meaningful review
of whether they were achievable during the 4-year period we had. Definitely, we found out some of
those plans were obsolete and had to be revised. That is why we came up with a... management
action plan. This was actually an implementation thing of what our review of the master plans and
other reports. Early on, I noticed in my dealings with Japan that they provided the most realistic
technical and economic advice. So we asked JICA [Japan International Cooperation Agency] for a
grant assistance to come in and do an economic assessment of where we were and what we needed
and a timetable. So they came in and did what we came to refer to as the ‘JICA Economic Plan.’
When they finished, our cabinet reviewed it and said it was achievable. So I had Congress formally
adopt it by resolution. So that became the blueprint for Palau.”
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“What is available within government are reports and analysis from ADB, [the] World
Bank, [the] IMF [International Monetary Fund], UNDP [United Nations Development
Programme], and other countries as well as statistical reports from Economic Policy, Planning and
Statistics Office. It is this compilation that forms the basis [for decision making]. We have to look at
all of these reports to get a grip on the economic situation. Local business people provide important
information to government. Should government have an economic development policy? Yes. We
need to bring everyone to contribute to that. An issue for us is how to establish a systematic
economic development policy? With the compact, there is coordination of grants and federal
funding. Now there is funding from the EU. We began directing different donor money to different
areas. But a comprehensive economic policy should have been compiled. It’s not easy when our
fragile economy depends on outside sources of funding.”
The same president added, “When... decisions need to be made, we must go to the technical
people at the ministries involved to give assessments of the impact and options... Government
workers, in spite of their shortcomings, have a lot of experience and can provide good advice.”
Are Reforms Imposed or Homegrown?
Reforms are sometimes seen as being imposed from the outside, but for the most part the presidents
felt that reforms were recognized locally as being necessary.
“A few looked at it [the reforms] as an outside imposition, but [the technical advisors] and
these key leaders helped convince most leaders that it was needed and timely.”
“There are some people who see it as a good thing regardless of who suggested it, and others
see it as a good thing but it’s not from us so therefore it is not appropriate for us.”
“Some people in leadership feel that way, that it’s being imported from outside. When we
get ADB and other donors to focus on reforms, we find the reforms they are trying to do are what we
know needs to be done. But because the report comes from outside, people think it is being imposed
from outside. Some reform ideas are a foreign concept so they are not readily implemented at lower
levels. Whoever provides aid needs to understand the local culture to understand the perceptions of
what’s expected to happen when the program is implemented.”
“Some decisions have been seen as imposed from outside... But if we think that we need
fiscal reform now, then what are we waiting for?”
Government Employment as Wealth Distribution?
Historically, the provision of government jobs in Micronesia has been viewed by many as the best
way to spread the wealth. While most presidents agreed that this perception exists and is strong
throughout most of the islands, most also agreed that it is wrong and must now change:
“Attitudes regarding the US and the role of government, those of us that grew up in the
generations after World War II know that government started as a welfare idea. After the war, there
was nothing... no economy, no food, no jobs. The Naval Administration had to come in to do a
welfare state through some kind of government system. That became an institutional expectation,
that the government would provide you with education, with health—provide you not with food
stamps, but some kind of assistance, and you’re very lucky if you get a job with the government as
you’ll be able to afford things money can buy.”
“This perception is very strong. People see government jobs as for their benefit. It is really
holding us back. The government gives too much, even my administration. Ministers hire their
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wives, nephews, and nieces to government jobs. It will take quite a while to get rid of this mentality.
It exists and we need to deal with it.”
“Yes this is true. That’s why we need to develop the outer islands and the private sector to
take over the role of the government as the provider of jobs.”
“We do not always hire the most qualified people. Nepotism is still an issue everywhere.”
“Giving people jobs is the easiest thing to do if there’s money, but we can’t afford that.”
5. The Road Ahead: Reinvigorating the Reform Agenda
Reform Progress: Where To from Here?
The presidents see progress in some areas as a result of past reform programs. But the size of
government, skill levels of employees, and policies of government weigh heavily against ongoing
change. For example, while the Marshall Islands initially met workforce reduction targets in the late
1990s, the government workforce has since increased by 60%.
One president sees improved capacity in certain areas, including significant improvement in
financial management and audit performance, as a result of the focus on reforms. “Our audits have
improved, as have our bidding and procurement procedures,” he said.
Changing spending patterns or cutting the size of the government workforce doesn’t need
outside technical assistance—it needs political will of elected leadership. “A homegrown plan can be
done,” said one president. “Identifying areas to cut is easy.” In other areas, however, technical
assistance and expertise can be helpful. “We need outside and objective evaluations,” said the
president. “An objective review of the structure of our governments, efficiency, maintaining or
eliminating positions, organizations, and departments, etc. Organizational reviews, job evaluations,
and organizational evaluations are needed.”
The presidents agreed more reforms need to be carried out across a range of areas.
Potential Sources of Future Instability
High expectations among FAS populations for government service provision, coupled with stagnant
or declining local revenues, portend an uncertain future. Of concern to several of the presidents is
the level of the government trust funds that are being capitalized largely by funding from the COFA,
and their ability to replace current high levels of US grant funding under the compact. For the FSM,
there are concerns about the long-term viability of the four-state federation once the compact with
the US ends in 2023—a political issue with economic ramifications. The visa-free access to the US
that the FAS enjoy as a result of the compact is an important safety valve offering education and job
opportunities to thousands of FAS citizens. This compact provision has been well-used, particularly
since the mid-1990s, by citizens of the three FAS nations. But a range of unresolved political,
economic, and social issues could threaten these otherwise stable small island communities.
Concern about political unity in the FSM has been an issue for many years, and the
presidents suggested that the end of the compact could remove the glue that binds the federation.
“Will our federation hold [after 2023]?” asked one president. “Leadership (especially the president)
must be very mindful of this. We must be very wary of what might happen if assistance levels reduce.
Will this dismantle the federation? There’s already talk about this.” Another said, “The compact is
holding us together, it seems. There is a real threat of instability [without the compact] and
breakaways [by the states). In a sense, political problems can cause economic problems in the FSM.”
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Internal political divisions in the Marshall Islands—from October 2008 to October 2009
three motions of no confidence in government were introduced into Parliament, with the final one
succeeding in ousting a sitting president for the first time in 30 years of constitutional government—
have led to intermittent disruption of routine government operations as employees wait for
leadership struggles to be resolved. There are also issues within the wider society, with divisions
between government and landowners over agreements for use of privately held land, and divisions
among the multitude of Christian-based religious groups. “All of these groups are split up and
working against each other,” commented one president. Another pointed to instability in
government. While stating that “for now, people are content,” he said “there could be possible
problems. Instability in government, like [in] Nauru, could cause it. Members of the Nitijela base
their decision for president on whether they are satisfied with decisions of government. They’re the
ones who decide because of the Constitution. There is supposed to be a nonpolitical public service to
be stable. But top political people are subject to instability.”
Employment opportunities and the ability of government to continue providing essential
services such as power, water, and sewerage are key issues for ongoing stability in the FAS. “There’s
no doubt we are facing hard times unless we help ourselves,” said one president. In the absence of
increased local revenue, “the pie is still going to be the same size and there are more public
expectations, and higher cost of living and for running the government,” he continued. “People want
medical coverage; we’re talking about universal coverage. People also want higher social security. If
the government does not do anything meaningful to address this you can expect unrest. People have
loans to pay off. Anyone who gets laid off today is going to find things very hard.”
There is a fundamental disagreement between the FAS and the US State Department over
the purpose of the trust funds established for the three FAS nations. FAS leaders view the purpose of
trust funds as replacing US grant funding when their compacts end, while the US views the trust
funds as future economic assistance without the requirement of matching the level of US grant
funding. Based on performance of the trust funds in recent years, the earnings will fall short of the
expectations of FAS leaders. Since the mid-2000s, investment results have been mixed, with the trust
funds losing more than one-fourth of their value during the global economic crisis in 2008. “How
we make adjustments in our trust fund shortfall is a critical part of our future,” said one president.
“When you put all of these challenges on the table,” said one president, “we really have no
one to look to except ourselves. This is why the environment [is so important]. It is our ace in the
hole. If we are not careful about protecting and sustaining it, then it will just be another island and
no one will want to come.”
The Compacts of Free Association and Economic Development
In 2009, in the Marshall Islands and the FSM, over 70% of the education and health budgets were
paid for by US grants. In late 2009, 6 years into the 20-year agreement, US and Marshall Islands
officials agreed that the Marshall Islands must develop by 2010 a plan for addressing declining US
grant funding.
Presidents in the Marshall Islands and Palau were blunt in their observations that the
compact is not a vehicle for economic independence. “The compact promotes dependence,” said
one. “It establishes our relationship with the US, but this is not an equal relationship; one is higher
than the other.” “The honest answer is it [the compact] is not doing enough,” said another.
“The compact is doing its share in promoting education and health of our people,” said one
president. “And that is important. These are important nation-building pillars, to promote health
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and education. When it comes to investments, if it weren’t for Taipei,China and Japan [there would
be no foreign investments]. There are really no American investments here. Most of the [US]
assistance is institutional assistance, for the government to deliver basic services. When it comes to
how we can promote the private sector, it falls squarely on the people. If there was a strategy, it
should have been education and health in the initial compact and then economic focus on the
second.”
“Compact funds go to areas that do not directly create growth and jobs [especially
education and health],” said another president. “The education and health budgets and spending
levels are clearly not sustainable—we can’t afford to continue at these same levels, especially with the
annual compact decrements.”
The first compacts for the Marshall Islands and the FSM, implemented in 1986, included
provisions to support private sector growth and investment. Originally, as noted by one of the
presidents, negotiators agreed to give the islands access to US markets for goods manufactured in the
islands. But protectionist members of the US Congress removed those provisions and provided
development funding as “compensation” for removal of the tax and trade benefits before approving
the agreement. But only a fraction of the promised funding was ever provided. “The idea of
Compact I providing development is the US would provide access of the Marshall Islands to engage
in the US market and for Marshallese to move back and forth for employment and educational
opportunities,” said one president. “But we’re still trying to get money for tax incentives that were
taken out of the first compact.”
The compact’s confirmation of the FAS countries’ status as sovereign nations made them
eligible for membership in ADB; the EU; Africa, Caribbean and Pacific group (ACP); and other
development aid agencies. “In a sense, the compact encourages development by making [the FAS]
eligible for these institutions and markets,” said one president. But loan debt to ADB has put
significant strain on the Marshall Islands government’s national budget and the projects funded have
had relatively little impact on productive sectors.
“There have also been efforts by the Department of Interior [to] sponsor business
conferences trying to encourage American companies to invest,” said the president. “The compact
provides protection for US businesses. I’d like to see US direct investment in the Marshall Islands
economy. We need to work on that. Bringing back domestic US postal service was very important to
business development. But there are only very small amounts of funding available for business
development.”
Preparation for the End of Compacts of Free Association with the United States
The presidents were in agreement that time is of the essence, given the end of compacts for the FSM
and the Marshall Islands in 2023 and Palau’s compact in a renegotiation period (in late 2009).
Several believe that US assistance will continue when the current compacts expire, but that the FAS
should not count on it. The lack of focused development plans is also an issue for some of the FAS
nations. Development of local resources—such as agriculture, fisheries, and aquaculture—remains an
elusive goal for most of the islands. “The question is, what do we do now?” said one president.
“Let’s not wait until 2023.” Observed another, “We need a renewed sense of commitment to build a
strong nation that is economically self-sufficient. The compact and foreign aid have killed people’s
initiative. I don’t see any real drive to grow ourselves. We need an economic plan, and we need to
stick with it and implement it.”
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“Between now and 2023, the business sector must grow so more resources are generated
from within the Marshall Islands,” said another president. “When the compact ceases to provide
funding, there will be a huge gap that needs to be filled. If we are not moving fast enough to fill the
gap, it will force some difficult financial decisions. Even if the trust fund gives us the same level of
funding as in the compact in 2023, there will still be difficult financial challenges.”
“We have no choice but to envision a future that is able to maintain itself despite compact
funding diminishing or being eliminated,” one president said. “That’s the only hope we have. Short
of US assistance after the end of Compact II, Palau has no choice but to open itself up to foreign
investment. Because you have to replace something with something. It’s not going to be enough
expecting natural growth of Palau to offset the millions of dollars that are going to be not available.”
But another president believes the focus should be on developing local resources for selfreliance. “We need to develop our primary resources that can’t be taken away: the ocean and land,”
he said. “Tourism depends on outside conditions. But fisheries and agriculture we can sustain.”
These comments were supported by another president: “To prepare for the future, we need to help
the outer islands by developing agriculture and greater self-reliance.”
One president summed up the challenge facing leaders who must respond to declining
foreign aid in countries that have been aid-dependent for three generations: “What are the options
except to entice a whole slew of investments to come in, or to dramatically increase foreign assistance
not from the US but maybe Japan or Taipei,China, or to dramatically cut the size of the
government. But that third option... I don’t know who has the guts to do that.”
How to Solve the Challenge of Dependence on United States Aid
The challenge is to expand the local economy, agree most of the presidents, along with diversifying
the base of international donors that provide aid to the FAS. Most acknowledge that the FAS will
require continued foreign assistance when the compacts with the US end.
“Growing the economy is basically it,” said one president. “If we don’t have a private sector,
don’t talk about financial sustainability.” But a critical missing element identified by this president is
the lack of capital for local business development.
“The main thing to go with education and training is capital,” he said. “Everyone has some
natural business instincts. But unless you have that help to get off the ground, you’ll continue to be
‘illiterate’ economically. The main challenge is how do we get more Palauans involved in
development opportunities; how do we get more Palauans in the business sector and not just seeking
employment in the government?”
Two additional suggestions offered by one of the presidents were more aggressive
diplomatic efforts to generate foreign aid and increasing capacity of legislators in the FAS.
The Freely Associated States "Sovereign Model” of Development
While development plans and economic reports frequently talk about goals of increasing selfreliance, and mention agriculture and fisheries as important sectors, the notion of a sovereign model
for national development has not yet developed in the FAS. But the presidents agree with the need
for island-centered development that emphasizes quality of life, subsistence, and commercial coastal
fishing and commercial agriculture opportunities involving FAS citizens.
“The Marshall Islands,” said one president, “just needs a good plan and strong support from
our development partners. Fisheries and agriculture development are essential. Taipei,China’s
demonstration farm has proved we can grow agriculture products here. There is a several million
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dollar industry in imported vegetables. We’ve talked about turning the entire island of Arno or the
main island of Wotje into a farm. If I had to make a choice, I’d go agriculture instead of fishing so I
could work on a farm rather than going to sea.”
Development Requires Engaged and Proactive Leadership
The presidents agree that successful development requires engaged, honest, and proactive political
leadership, but point out that political systems and attitudes are a hurdle.
“We need leaders who are committed and have foresight and strength to take the lead on
development projects to ensure they are implemented to meet their goals,” said one. “Political
leadership is very important in any development project. Especially with our parliamentary system of
government, if political leadership is not there, the project will fail. There must be a strong
commitment of our top leaders.”
Another president said honesty and engagement of leaders is a fundamental element of a
stable and democratic government. “The last thing we want to be is perceived as a country where
only corrupt people can do business in government or the private sector,” he said. “You want to
promote success based on the rule of law, transparency, and fiscally responsible policies. Confidence
and stability are important factors to any business, especially foreign capital.”
Two presidents described factors that prevent engaged, honest, and proactive political
leaders from coming to the fore, and why development policy decisions can be skewed to personal or
other interests. “There’s too much emphasis on titles and not on accomplishments,” said one
president. “Being able to speak English is not a sign of wisdom. There are lots of Marshallese who
don’t speak English who are very smart.” Another said, “The Congress–executive branch friction
makes it hard to make policy. We don’t have good governance. Most leaders are like cowboys, they
shoot from the hip [instead of using data and analysis].”
One president said that “timetables” are essential to successful outcomes. “One important
thing is that once goals of a development project are set, we need to also set the time frame,” he said.
“Target dates are important. Without them, the level of effort will decline.”
Another president suggested term limits for elected politicians, as exist in Kosrae and Palau.
Gaining Public Support for Political Change
Every president emphasized the need for engagement with the public through summits, public
hearings, and other means of dialogue at the grassroots level. In the Marshall Islands and Palau,
independent newspapers and radio stations help increase public awareness. But one president
pointed to a less accessible independent media in the FSM that underlines why national summits and
other consultations with the public are crucial to the success of reforms and development projects in
the FSM. Addressing details of the programs with the public and also ensuring continuity of action
were other factors emphasized by the presidents to engage the public. One president shared his
experience of the importance of qualified resident consultants able to engage on a day-to-day basis to
inform and influence leadership.
The presidents talked about the need not only to engage the public on the “big picture”
plans but also on the details. “There is a need to get people involved,” said one president.
“Participation is essential. To make projects succeed, government, donors, and people need to
participate every step of the way. Lending agencies can ensure a project meets its benchmarks by
getting people on board, by going to the villages, and getting everyone to talk about it. It is very
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important to have community consultations even on minor details. The plans must be understood
and accepted.”
Another said, “The national summits helped, along with the leadership meetings [at the
state and national levels], in getting the public involved as much as possible, even in the remote
islands, and educating citizens on the need to review progress and readjusting.”
“Decision making by participation is essential,” said another. “Don’t underestimate the
intelligence of people these days. The electorate is very literate. One of the success stories for us in
Micronesia is we are all literate. Education is mandatory; we all read and write. The young
generation is in tune with what is going on. This generation and the next generation are smart
people. The computer age, media access, and information access: people here know what a good
government should be. They know. It is when the government distances itself from the grassroots
people, so people feel it is the government’s own decision, not theirs, that they won’t support it.
Participation in government is the only way to achieve needed reforms. In most cases, it is the other
way around. People expect reform, but those responsible for doing the reforms are very slow to do it
or do not actually do it.”
Focusing on Reform Opportunities in the Freely Associated States
Several important points were raised by some or all of the presidents about reforms that need to
happen. Enabling and expanding the private sector is important to expanding the revenue base of the
islands to replace some of the US grant funding that will end soon. There is also a need to reform
and diversify the ministries of foreign affairs to expand opportunities for partnerships and aid beyond
the “traditional” donors (Australia, Japan, and the US).
But how can public ownership and buy-in of needed reforms be achieved, particularly when
these involve potentially unpopular changes, such as cutting or eliminating subsidies for copra
production and school lunch programs? A number of presidents pointed to greater public
involvement and consultations to explain why difficult decisions have to be made. One president
spoke about the key role that auditors, special prosecutors, media, and rule of law play in curbing
corruption in government, another problem in need of action. In this regard, the president credited
the public for playing a critical role in preventing elected leaders’ attempts to roll back earlier reforms
that required higher standards of accountability and ethics.
Lax attitudes toward education have produced poorly performing public schools in most
islands. One president believes a critical unmet need is greater focus on technical and vocational
training. “I’d like to see people stay here, but if they are leaving then we should prepare them better,”
he said. “The priorities should be to (i) increase the private sector to employ people here, (ii) help
outer islands with assistance they need (not always jobs), (iii) equip people to go abroad by
improving the education system and training, and (iv) diversify our sources of assistance through
diplomatic relations.” Another president offered a slightly different list of priorities to promote
reform: “leadership training, policy analysis, voter education, transparency, and media.”
Virtually all the presidents interviewed stated the need for an engaged public and greater
transparency in government, whether through the provision of higher-quality education or training,
through media, or through participation in national development issues by nongovernment
organizations and community groups.
One president argued that private sector support needs to be a top priority. “If ADB wants
to help, it should help the private sector,” he said. “In the past, ADB has focused on infrastructure,
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roads, water, etc. But they should also help bringing in industry and manufacturing, and developing
agriculture and fisheries.”
While most of the presidents ranked private sector development high on their list of needed
reforms, the FAS are not generally noted for their investment-friendly policies. There have been
some recent reform efforts in the foreign investment sector, but the FAS do not rank high on the
World Bank’s annual Ease of Doing Business reports. “We’ve been heavily criticized [by donors] that
we’re overly protective in our policies and legislation,” acknowledged one president. “That’s coming
from a majority of the small population who fear every day that there will come a time when we
become a minority in our own islands. So our economic policies have always been conservative.”
These concerns, however valid, don’t address the economic reality, he said: “The truth of the matter
is we’ll never have enough capital from our own people to support advancement of the economy.
Foreign capital/investment is a critical part of our future. How do we attract them to a very limited
opportunity is of course the challenge. So our smallness, our fragile environment contributes to a
very limited option, that is, tourism. There is a little bit of fisheries here, but as you know stocks are
dwindling and most are migratory fish. So aside from tourism, fishing, and a little farming, basically
tourism is the thing. It’s our ‘fish and taro’ industry. The opportunities for foreign capital and
investment will continue to be in those areas.”
Specific Areas in Need of Reform
Increasing the revenue base of the FAS by expanding private sector opportunities and foreign
investment, as well as privatizing state-owned enterprises, was high on the priority lists of most of the
presidents. Several also agree that action to improve the business environment needs to be coupled
with improved performance in public sector operations. Among reforms recommended by the
presidents were the following:
Investment and business reform. “We need to expand the revenue base, to find new ways
to generate taxes for government services,” said one president, who recommended being “innovative
to find new ways to bring in revenue.” He continued, “We have to grow the economy. That’s the big
reform. So investment and business legislation need to be reformed.”
Corporatization of agencies of government. In the Marshall Islands, this could include Air
Marshall Islands, Marshalls Energy Company, National Telecommunications Authority, and
transportation services to outer islands. In the FSM, this could include the National Fisheries
Department and FSM Telecommunications Authority, among others. In Palau, water and sewer
services were identified as good opportunities for privatization. By privatizing, these agencies could
be providing resources to government if they are run well and without political interference. In the
Marshall Islands, the Marshall Islands Marine Resources Authority and the Marshall Islands Ports
Authority are examples of functioning government agencies that can run on their own without
subsidy. For the FSM, it was suggested that plans and proposals for revamping state-owned
enterprises and other government services need to be revisited. An outside entity is needed to
recommend solutions and to help with implementation.
Privatization of some health services. In the Marshall Islands, some Ministry of Health
programs could be privatized. With institutional reform, such ministries could focus on improving
and maintaining core services. For example, the hospital could bid out operations for its morgue to a
private organization that can do it more efficiently. Then the hospital could focus on its core
program of delivering health care.
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Control subsidies. The level of service provided by government should be based on need to
reduce overall dependency of the public and state-owned enterprises on subsidies; for example, if
there is an inadequate volume of passengers and cargo for Air Marshall Islands to provide regular
commercial service to a remote outer atoll, the government could provide a limited subsidy to ensure
the minimum needed service.
Expansion of diplomatic partnerships. Policies of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should be
reformed to emphasize exploration and expansion of bilateral partnerships beyond traditional donors
to the FAS. “Aligning so closely with the US prevents us from cooperating with others,” observed
one president.
Financing for private sector development. ADB should consider supporting private sector
development by facilitating financing for private sector initiatives in areas such as fisheries, tourism,
and air and sea transport.
Constitutional reform. In the FSM, a review of the federalist system of government was
suggested. “Is it working?” asked one president. “What about a parliamentary system?” In the
Marshall Islands, which has a parliamentary system of government, one president observed, “We
need to change the system of government. This is the biggest reform needed. Why other countries
are better at implementing reforms is because their government system allows them to do it. The
FSM and the Marshall Islands are in the same situation. They need greater independence in the
executive branch of government. That would benefit both.”
Recommendations to Donors
The presidents’ advice to development partners includes the following:
Consultation. For projects to be successful, there needs to be broader consultation. “They
need to make people understand what’s going to happen and they need to know if people accept the
reforms planned,” said one president. “Consultation needs to be broader and deeper. Years ago,
Amata Kabua would call me to get my support to pass a bill. But some projects here, senators were
not consulted. So when I asked for their support, they ask, ‘why—what’s this all about?’ They don’t
even know. On the Public Sector Reform Program, ADB came to my office to discuss it. I wanted
them to meet with all senators. I wanted them to do it, but it didn’t work out. Two years later,
people not consulted became cabinet ministers and then asked, ‘why are we laying off hundreds of
workers?’ Consultation is important with senators who will eventually be in government. Otherwise,
they come into cabinet and have no idea what’s going on.”
Performance benchmarks. Key points in Compact II are benchmarks, performance-based
budgeting, and capacity building. These three go together. “ADB should do the same thing,” said
one president. “People said the US was interfering in our sovereignty. But it is important how money
is spent. More efficient and effective spending means higher quality delivery of education and health.
I hope the next ADB project follows what we did in the compact. The EU also demands meeting
certain benchmarks or it won’t release money.”
Private sector. If ADB wants to help small islands develop, it should help develop the
private sector. The islands need to find new sources of revenue, jobs, and ideas. For example, if the
islands maintained the level of employment demanded by ADB in the late-1990s Public Sector
Reform Program, they would not have the new schools that have opened. “That’s a fact that can’t be
disputed,” said one president. “One point about the saying, ‘it takes money to make money’—ADB
has to employ that concept also. It needs to look at what are the areas of opportunity, the areas of
help where if we help this nation, they can be more capable to actually realize more benefits. More
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and more that has to be a strategic focus of ADB: assessing what are the strongest points for the FAS.
If they invest in this, then the country is going to come out in a better situation. It’s not just
technical assistance to fix this or fix that. Of course these are important. But what are the good
things that if you pour in more money will develop the economy? Now that we know there are more
entrepreneurs, more educated people, why not help the development banks by putting some funds
into them with basic guidelines? At least help the institutions that have a better track record and
record of returns by investing money to make money.”
Loans. “Unless we really need loans, don’t accept them,” said one president. “Some loans
we could have done without. Now we have to repay $60+ million in loans. We are saddled with
these loans. ADB was very aggressive in loan promotion. The ADB talks about poverty reduction but
those loans are causing us difficulties. This year, Marshall Islands has to pay about $4 million [more
than 10% of locally generated revenues] to ADB. It reduces flexibility to explore other programs
because we are saddled with these loan repayments.”
6. Conclusion: A Window of Opportunity
Development and reform proponents need to be cognizant of the pervasive and long-standing
“welfare state” attitudes that shape perceptions about the role of government and the direction of
national development, and influence governance and decision making in Micronesia. These
countries face major challenges to increasing economic independence as a consequence of the
abundance of (and thus heavy reliance on) aid flows, risky environments for foreign investment, and
COFAs with the US.
Because the challenges to reform and economic development in Micronesia are significant,
development partners should consider the need for longer horizons on reform and development
projects. Coupled with this, consultative processes are extremely important throughout all stages of
the reform process, from initial planning and design of reforms through to implementation and
evaluation. Congruence and alignment in understanding and expectations among the key
stakeholder groups can help facilitate reforms and change: consultative processes and commonly
agreed-upon road maps and plans with timetables are the most effective means to maximize
congruence and alignment. In general, reforms that aim to bring about significant change,
particularly in the public sector, must be taken step-by-step and be implemented over a mediumterm horizon so as to allow sufficient time for change processes and adaptation to take place.
RIF exercises that formed part of previous reform efforts were extremely sensitive and are
considered the most “painful” types of reform. Future reform efforts that include RIF-type actions
must be very carefully planned so as to minimize their socioeconomic impacts, and should carefully
consider the political impacts.
Understanding who influences political decision making—and what influences political
leaders respond to—in each country is critical to the success of reforms, and to development projects
more generally. Major reform efforts in Micronesia must include consideration of and consultation
with the key influence groups, including traditional leaders, religious leaders, landowners, business
owners, and wealthy individuals or families. The influence these groups have over governance and
development issues varies from island to island. These differences confirm the point that although
the three Micronesian states are small in size and population, share a close relationship with the US,
and are dependent on high levels of aid, there are a multitude of differences—ranging from cultural
traits to availability of independent media to geographic location—that do not lend themselves to a
“one size fits all” plan for development and reform. Each has special features that must be
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understood for donor-supported reforms and development projects to be successful. The availability
of independent media and citizen engagement in development decisions through NGOs are
important elements in changing attitudes and influencing political decisions, and similarly vary from
island to island.
A challenge on the horizon is the potential for instability and social unrest as aid levels
decline if a productive economy does not emerge to replace a considerable portion of the
development aid now being received. The young democracies in the Marshall Islands and the FSM
are faced with potentially serious governance issues that affect development progress: the long-term
sustainability of the federation of the four states that compose the FSM is an increasingly important
issue as the compact’s end in 2023 approaches; while in the Marshall Islands the push for changes to
the parliamentary structure of government is gaining steam, including the need for direct election of
the president and stronger separation of the executive and legislative branches of government.
The twin pillars of the subsistence economy in the Micronesian islands, agriculture and
fisheries, can also be the foundation for future development and greater economic self-reliance. A
second point concerning economic development emphasized by the presidents is the current lack of
capital needed for citizens to expand private sector activity. Business sectors must grow between now
and 2023—when the compacts for the FSM and the Marshall Islands end—if there is to be any hope
of the islands maintaining basic government services for their citizens. Limited access to capital is still
cited by islanders as a key constraint.
There is a fairly strong consensus across Micronesia on the need to revisit the reform agenda
and to reignite the flame of greater self-reliance. Despite this, reaching a collective choice on how to
move forward remains a major challenge, due in large part to capacity and governance challenges.
What is absolutely clear is that there are two linked necessities to development progress
across Micronesia: improving public sector effectiveness and performance, and revving up the
economy through expansion of the private sector. Maximizing government use of resources and
strengthening core institutions that support the rule of law, transparency, and accountability are the
key prerequisites to development progress.
The Micronesian nations and their development partners are faced with a critical deadline.
By 2023, when compact funding ends for the FSM and the Marshall Islands, these nations must be
ready—or at least significantly better prepared than they were in 2009—to function in the absence
of the large-scale US aid that they have been accustomed to receiving since the late-1960s. This
deadline provides the people of Micronesia and their development partners a limited window of
opportunity in which to bring about needed reforms and development progress. Time is of the
essence, but just as important is the need for well-conceived, homegrown road maps for change
driven by leaders in these islands in consultation with their development partners.
7 Governance Reform in
the Public Sector in Pacific
Island Countries
Understanding How Culture Matters
by Roderick Duncan
ABSTRACT
International aid agencies have emphasized governance reform in Pacific island countries for more
than a decade. Despite this, there is little evidence that governance reform programs have improved
public sector operations in most of these countries. Past reviews of governance reform programs by
international aid agencies have stressed the importance of understanding local culture, but there has
been a failure to follow up with research into Pacific culture, especially its political culture. Current
Pacific political culture shares many of the same values that were in place prior to contact with
European societies. Three Pacific political values are identified: distribution, transparency, and
competition. Working with these values, rather than against them, could lead to better design of
international aid efforts in the Pacific.
1. Introduction: What Are We Doing Wrong?
During the crisis of the early 2000s, Solomon Islands briefly became a “failed state.” Its score on the
World Bank’s Governance Matters index of government effectiveness, which is a general measure of
the capability of the government, fell from –1.04 in 2000 to –2.5 in 2003 (see Figure 7.1 and
discussion below). The result of –2.5 gave Solomon Islands the lowest worldwide score for
government effectiveness, below even Somalia at –1.9 and –1.8 for the Democratic Republic of
Korea. The government of Solomon Islands had effectively ceased to exist.
With the combined effort of local leaders, 15 other Pacific nations, international
development agencies, and nongovernment organizations (NGOs), the government of Solomon
Islands was put back together. In 2006, the World Bank’s Government Effectiveness assessment of
Solomon Islands was –0.64, in 2007 it was –1.06, and in 2008 it was –0.79. Thus, despite a
relatively large amount of freedom, years of effort, and enormous amounts of domestic and
international resources, the general governance indicators of Solomon Islands were no better after the
crisis than they were before, and have failed to improve since.
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
It is as though a hurricane swept through a village, flattening all the grass huts, and then
huge amounts of resources were spent, using lots of fancy equipment and hundreds of the world’s
best consultants, to rebuild the grass huts in exactly the same shape they were in before the hurricane.
It would be a comedy routine—just not a very funny one. Why is progress on governance so difficult
to achieve in the Pacific?
2. Is Governance a Priority in the Pacific?
In his foreword to Governance and Development, a book that did much to place emphasis on
governance in less-developed countries, Lewis Preston, then World Bank president stated (1992, p.
v),
Good governance is an essential complement to sound economic policies. Efficient
and accountable management by the public sector and a predictable and transparent
policy framework are critical to the efficiency of markets and governments, and
hence to economic development.
The 1997 World Bank Development Report: The State in a Changing World was the first
development report to take the quantity and quality of public sector institutions explicitly into
account. With the development of the World Bank’s Governance Matters indexes and publication of
strategy documents since the 1997 report, such as the 2000 Reforming Public Institutions and
Strengthening Governance: A World Bank Strategy, the World Bank moved to emphasize governance
reform in its aid efforts.
The World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group’s (IEG) Public Sector Reform: What
Works and Why? estimated that 11% of all World Bank loans approved between 1990 and 2006 had
significant public sector reform elements (IEG 2008). Clearly, public sector reform is a growing
priority for the World Bank. IEG estimated that for the period 2002–2006, the percentage of
projects with public sector reform elements constituted more than 16% of all World Bank projects.
In the Pacific, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has emphasized the importance of
better governance in its Pacific Strategy papers back to the 1996 Pacific Strategy (ADB 1996). In its
2005–2009 Pacific Strategy, governance was placed at the center of the ADB reform agenda (ADB
2004, p. v):
... while natural constraints are real, the quality of policies and institutions are vital
to the economic growth, social development and poverty reduction prospects of the
PDMCs [Pacific developing member countries]. It is here that ADB should focus its
attention.
While previous ADB Pacific Strategy papers had included governance as one of a number of
strategic objectives, this was the first time that governance reform was labeled as the “focus” of ADB
efforts.
For the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and the New Zealand
Aid Programme (NZAID), significant bilateral aid agencies in the Pacific, governance reform has
been an increasingly important priority since the early 1990s. AusAID (2008) estimated that
governance reform projects accounted for more than 30% of total overseas development assistance
for Australia. This figure understates the emphasis on governance within the AusAID budget, as
AusAID also estimated that 30% of the value of its aid to education and 50% of its aid to the health
sector included “significant governance components.”
Governance Reform in the Public Sector in Pacific Island Countries
141
Thus, governance is clearly a priority, and a growing focus, for development agencies within
the Pacific. What is not clear is whether improvements in governance are a priority of Pacific
politicians, public servants, and influential individuals. If governance reform is the key to
development, why is it so difficult to achieve?
3. What Progress Do We See on Governance?
There is little evidence of much improvement in governance in the Pacific island countries (PICs)
despite the decade-long efforts of domestic civic groups, international groups such as Transparency
International, and aid agencies. The index of government effectiveness index from the World Bank’s
Governance Matters VIII database (2009) measures perceptions of the quality and independence of
the public sector. From 1996–2008, aid agencies made governance reform increasingly central to
their efforts, in both words and lending. Figure 7.1 shows the evolution of these indexes for 13
members of the Pacific Islands Forum. Apart from the collapse and recovery of the public sector in
Solomon Islands, the only feature that stands out is the apparent lack of any improvement in the
perceptions of the public sector during this time, when enormous amounts of resources were being
spent on governance reforms.
Any of the other governance indicators of the effectiveness of the public sector or of the
ubiquity of corruption could have been used from the Governance Matters VIII database: indexes of
regulatory quality, rule of law, or control of corruption would show roughly the same picture. In
fact, these four indexes are cross-correlated across countries at greater than 0.90.
A criticism of the use of the Governance Matters indexes to measure progress on governance
is that the indexes are measuring perceived corruption, which may not be an accurate reflection of
real progress in institutions within the public sector because public perceptions may be slow to adjust
to reforms. IEG (2008) made this argument and preferred to use their own Country Policy and
Institutional Assessment (CPIA) indexes, which represent opinions of the World Bank staff working
in each country. The CPIA was developed in the 1970s as a set of criteria against which to evaluate
World Bank lending practices for internal use by World Bank staff. In 1998, the CPIA was revised to
include governance—matching the growing emphasis on governance in the reports by the World
Bank and the development of the Governance Matters database (World Bank 2008).
The CPIA indexes of governance are grouped in Cluster D “Public Sector Management and
Institutions,” Indexes 12–16. As an example, for “Property Rights and Rule-based Governance,”
World Bank staff working in the country are asked to assess (World Bank 2008, p. 32)
... the extent to which private economic activity is facilitated by an effective legal
system and rule-based governance in which property and contracts rights are reliably
respected and enforced.
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Figure 7.1 Government Effectiveness, 1996–2008
1
0.5
0
-0.5
-1
-1.5
-2
-2.5
-3
1996
1998
2000
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
Cook Islands
Fiji
Kiribati
Marshall Islands
Microneisa, Fed. States of
Palau
Papua New Guinea
Samoa
Solomon Islands
Timor-Leste
Tonga
Tuvalu
2008
Vanuatu
Source: World Bank Governance Matters database.
For this index, World Bank staff are requested to provide a rating of 16 different aspects of
property rights and governance in the country and then to provide a justification for that
determination. These opinions are compiled into an aggregate score between 1 (very weak) and 6
(very strong) for each criteria in each country.
Table 7.1 presents the change in the value of CPIA criteria 12–16, along with the average
change for each country, for the years 2005–2008 for the seven PICs included in the CPIA.
Unfortunately, these are the only years publicly available for the CPIA. Moreover, CPIA indexes
exist for Timor-Leste only for 2006–2008, so this change is used instead.
Governance Reform in the Public Sector in Pacific Island Countries
143
Table 7.1: Country Policy and Institutional Assessment:
Public Sector Management and Institutions
Country
Kiribati
Papua New
Guinea
12
Property
Rights and
Rule-Based
Governance
13
Quality of
Budget and
Financial
Management
0.0
14
Efficiency of
Revenue
Mobilization
15
Quality of
Public
Administration
16
Transparency,
Accountability,
and Corruption
in Public Sector
Average
(0.5)
0.0
(0.5)
(0.2)
(0.1)
(0.5)
0.0
0.0
0.0
(0.2)
0.1
Samoa
0.0
(0.5)
0.0
0.0
(0.1)
0.0
Solomon Islands
0.5
(0.5)
0.0
0.0
0.0
(0.1)
Timor-Leste
0.5
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.1
0.1
Tonga
0.0
0.5
0.0
1.5
0.6
0.3
Vanuatu
0.5
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.2
0.2
( ) = negative number.
Source: World Bank. Country Policy and Institutional Assessment database.
Although these indexes measure the impact of governance reform over only a relatively short
period, there is little evidence of systematic improvement in governance during the period.
ADB produces a set of indicators, the Country Performance Assessment (CPA), similar to
the World Bank’s CPIA. Opinions of the ADB country teams are collected for 16 indicators of
public sector policies and performance. Under the CPA, five measures of public sector performance
are compiled into a broad index of “Public Sector Management and Institutions.” As with the CPIA,
the CPA is a relatively recent exercise and the index is only publicly available for the period 2005–
2009. The results for 13 PICs are reported in Table 7.2. As with the CPIA, we are interested in the
change in the governance index over the period covered by the CPA exercises.
As with the CPIA, there is no clear evidence in this table that the various governance reform
efforts have led to improved public sector performance in the PICs. Just as many countries saw an
improvement in their performance indicator as saw their indicator fall.
A further criticism of the indexes in these databases are that they are normalized around zero
for each year and that the CPIA and CPA measure opinions of staff, so that a lack of improvement in
the Pacific indexes might be because governance around the world is improving, and that governance
in the Pacific is keeping track with global improvements. Therefore, a more concrete measure of the
impact of governance reform might be to look at the costs that are imposed on citizens in regulatory
compliance. We might assume that governance reform that is focused on producing a more efficient
and more transparent public sector would deliver a system with lower compliance costs.
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Table 7.2: Country Performance Assessment—Public Sector Management and Institutions
Years Covered by the
Assessments
Change in the Public Sector
Governance Index
Cook Islands
2005–2007
0.1
Kiribati
2005–2009
(0.3)
Marshall Islands
2005–2009
(0.4)
Micronesia, Federated States of
2005–2009
(0.7)
Nauru
2007–2009
0.1
Country
Palau
2008–2009
0.0
Papua New Guinea
2006–2009
0.5
Samoa
2005–2009
(0.4)
Solomon Islands
2006–2009
0.2
Timor-Leste
2007–2009
(0.3)
Tonga
2005–2009
0.8
Tuvalu
2005–2009
(0.2)
Vanuatu
2005–2009
0.1
( ) = negative number.
Source: Asian Development Bank. Various years. Country Performance Assessment Exercise annual reports.
The World Bank’s Doing Business project has been compiling measures of compliance costs
around the world since 2004. The Doing Business database records the number of documents and
the number of days that are required for citizens to perform various business-related tasks such as
opening and closing a business, registering property, and importing and exporting products. While
these indicators are not directly tied to governance, we might argue that they are an indicator of
administrative capacity of PICs’ public sectors. Public service reforms should lead to reductions in
the length of time required to administer many of these tasks, while efficiency efforts might lead to a
decline in the number of procedures needed to accomplish a task such as registering a business.
Just to take an indicative subset of the Doing Business database, for example, we are
interested in the regulatory burden for a small business owner who intends to export product
overseas. Has the recent emphasis on governance reform led to any reduction in the regulatory
burden? Our business owner might be interested in knowing the costs of opening the business, the
costs of exporting, and the costs to close the business. These indexes are reported in Table 7.3 for 11
PICs for 2004 and 2010 to see whether the regulatory burden has been declining. While this table
presents a subset of the Doing Business database, any other choice of indicators would reveal the
same story.
The assessment of the regulatory burden in Singapore in 2010 is included as a benchmark
of best practice. Singapore is usually in the top five countries in terms of lowest regulatory costs from
the Doing Business annual survey. If governance reforms have had an impact on administrative
capacity in the PICs, we might expect to see their numbers move closer to Singapore’s levels.
Governance Reform in the Public Sector in Pacific Island Countries
145
Table 7.3: Doing Business: Measures of Regulatory Burden
Starting a Business
Country
Fiji
Closing a
Business
Exportinga
Year
Procedures
Days
Procedures
Days
Years
2004
7
45
13
24
1.8
2010
8
46
13
24
1.8
2004
6
21
6
21
–
Kiribati
2010
6
21
6
21
–
2004
5
17
5
21
2.0
Marshall Islands
2010
5
17
5
21
2.0
2004
7
16
3
30
5.3
2010
7
16
3
30
5.3
2004
7
24
6
29
1.0
2010
8
28
6
29
1.0
2004
8
56
7
26
3.0
2010
8
56
7
26
3.0
2004
9
42
7
27
2.5
Micronesia,
Federated States of
Palau
Papua New Guinea
Samoa
2010
5
9
7
27
2.5
2004
7
57
7
24
1.0
Solomon Islands
2010
7
57
7
24
1.0
2004
10
92
6
25
–
Timor-Leste
2010
10
83
6
25
–
2004
4
32
7
19
2.7
2010
4
25
7
19
2.7
2004
7
39
7
26
2.6
2010
8
39
7
26
2.6
2010
3
3
4
5
0.8
Tonga
Vanuatu
b
Singapore
– = no information available.
a
The Exporting procedures and days are for 2006 and 2010, rather than for 2004 and 2010.
b
Singapore in 2010 is included as a benchmark of best practice.
Source: World Bank. Doing Business database.
There have been some marginal improvements in the costs of opening a business between
2004 and 2010 (with one outstanding improvement for Samoa), but there have been as many cases
of increased regulatory burden. For the costs of exporting (which here is only for 2006 to 2010) or
closing a business, there has been no change in the costs for the small business owner. Across the
PICs covered in the Doing Business database there is no evidence during a period in which
governance reform was a priority for aid agencies that this emphasis has led to any sustained
improvement in the administrative capacity of the PICs’ public sectors.
However, there have been some success stories in governance reform in the Pacific. In 2009,
ADB conducted a review (ADB 2009) of its 11 loans to the PICs over the period 1996 to 2002. The
loans chosen for the review supported public sector reform in eight Pacific DMCs. ADB’s own
evaluation of the success of the reform programs was “modest.” Reforms in the finance sector in
Samoa were singled out as a success.
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Interestingly, the ADB analysis broke down the list of eight Pacific DMCs into cultural
groupings of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia (p. vii):
By region, program loans in Pacific DMCs in the Polynesian countries were
“successful” overall. Results were overall “partly successful” in the Melanesian and
Micronesian countries that received ADB support for reforms.
Unfortunately, the ADB review did not attempt to explain why these differences might exist
across cultures. That the outcomes of reform programs can differ across cultures suggests that culture
may partially explain the outcomes of reforms. These cultural groupings are discussed later in the
paper and a cultural explanation for this diversity of reform outcomes across the Pacific proposed.
Also among the findings of the ADB review was that the results of the ADB reform
programs differed among the areas of the public sector in which reform was undertaken. Programs in
public financial management and public sector budgeting were more likely to be successful, while
broad reforms of the public sector to improve efficiency and cut costs were unlikely to be successful.
Reforms to finance ministries were more successful than reforms of other ministries.
4. Should We Be Surprised about the Lack of Progress on
Governance in the Pacific?
On a very naive level of analysis, we should not be surprised at the lack of progress on governance
indicators in the Pacific. Perceptions of corruption across the world track country per capita incomes
quite closely. Figure 7.2 shows the relationship between real gross domestic product (GDP) per
capita (using the 2007 figure from the Penn World Tables database 6.3) and the 2008 government
effectiveness value from the Governance Matters database for 184 countries, with an estimated linear
regression line added for emphasis. Ten PICs are indicated by squares in the figure, and the
observations for Luxembourg and Qatar have been omitted as their real GDP figures were severe
outliers.
With the PICs real GDP per capita generally lying in the $2,000 to $10,000 range, we
would expect to see an average government effectiveness level of –0.5 for these countries, which is
what we can see in Figure 7.1. Thus, governance figures are about where we would expect them to
be, given the range of incomes in the Pacific; and perhaps governance levels are not rising because
income levels in the Pacific are relatively stagnant. This observed relationship does not tell us
anything about the causal relationship between governance levels and income, but it does add a
further concern to the low real GDP growth rates in the Pacific. Do these low economic growth rates
in the PICs make progress on governance less likely?
Governance Reform in the Public Sector in Pacific Island Countries
147
Figure 7.2: Government Effectiveness, 2008
3
Government Effectiveness
2
1
0
-1
-2
-3
0
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000
50,000
Real Gross Domestic Product per Capita
Source: World Bank Governance Matters database and Penn World Tables PWT 6.3 database.
If the Pacific governance levels are about where we might expect them to be based on crosscountry comparisons, there is still the bright news that governance levels can lie in a relatively wide
range for a given income level. There is potential for improving governance, even though governance
does seem to be related to income.
Another feature of governance reform in the Pacific that should not be surprising is the
relative success of public finance programs along with the relative failure of broad public sector
reforms, as pointed out in the ADB review. In fact, this ADB finding for the Pacific mirrors the
results of a World Bank review of its loan programs worldwide released in the previous year.
IEG (2008) published a review of all World Bank and International Development Agency
support for public sector reform for 1990–2006. The review found that two-thirds of countries that
borrowed to fund programs focusing on financial management showed improved public finance
systems. The survey also found that countries that attempted broad public service reforms saw
improvement in less than half of the cases.
IEG was particularly severe in its criticism of programs to cut public sector payrolls and
employees through retrenchments and salary adjustments (2008, p. xv):
This approach typically failed to improve public administration, as noted in a 1999
IEG evaluation. Since then, the Bank has advocated the same approach, with a
similar lack of success...
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
These cost-cutting features were also part of the least successful ADB loan programs
reviewed in the 2009 survey in the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall
Islands.
The IEG review also found that taxation administration reform loans by the World Bank
have typically been successful, but that anticorruption and transparency programs in the form of
anticorruption bodies and laws “rarely succeeded.” In a background paper to the IEG report on
anticorruption reforms, Fjeldstad and Isaksen (2008) advised,
Direct measures to reduce corruption, such as the establishment of anti-corruption
commissions, tend not to succeed when they lack the required support from political
elites and the judicial system.
They suggested that any anticorruption reforms be tailored to an individual country’s
circumstances.
But this is something ADB has known, or should have known, for a long time. The ADB
2009 review repeated the themes from the 1999 ADB report by Knapman and Saldanha (1999).
Two of the themes presented by Knapman and Saldanha were domestic ownership of the reform
program and the need to understand domestic culture. It is unfortunate that Knapman and Saldanha
have these themes in their chapter titled “Lessons Learned,” because 10 years later we find the 2009
review repeating the statements that reforms need to gain domestic political support and that
[c]ultural traditions permeate society and social processes that affect decision-making
and actions of public servants; particularly where newly proposed systems clash with
traditions (e.g., wantok systems of social obligations towards kinsmen). Culturally
sensitive participatory approaches to introduce reform measures are needed (ADB
2009, p. 9).
It is not only these reports that have made these statements. Mellor and Jabes (2004) drew
out the findings from the country assessments for the ADB Medium-Term Action Plan 2000–2004.
The first finding was that
[t]he scope and content of past reforms were complex and, in large part, foreign to
traditional Pacific culture and value systems (p. x).
The second finding was that the lack of domestic support for governance reforms was one of
the reasons for the failure of reforms in the past. Looking back to the 2000 Pacific Strategy report by
ADB (2000, p. 9), the first two “key lessons” learned from past reform programs were ensuring
domestic political commitment and involving key stakeholders. The third key lesson learned was
accounting for local culture.
This combination of themes—failure to gain domestic political support and the need to
tailor reforms to the culture of a particular country—are constant throughout ADB evaluations since
the 1990s. Each report stated that the reasons for the failures of past reforms included lack of
domestic support and failure to account for domestic culture; and then stated that future reform
efforts would certainly assure that there was domestic support and account for local culture. And
then the next generation of reports would make exactly the same statements. Where are the lessons
learned?
I argue that these two themes are really two sides of the same problem. Knapman and
Sandalha (1999, p. 173) get it precisely wrong when they write that, “[t]he greater the internal
Governance Reform in the Public Sector in Pacific Island Countries
149
ownership of the reform program, the better it is suited to take account of cultural factors.” It is
because aid agencies have failed to put forward reforms that fit well with the political values of
developing countries that the reforms have failed to generate the domestic political support required
to make them a success.
But sadly these lessons should have been learned from the failure of the previous generation
of reform efforts conducted by the World Bank in the 1980s. In a review of 124 loans by the World
Bank in 32 countries between 1980 and 1997, Girishankar et al. (1999) found that only 33% of
completed loan projects achieved satisfactory outcomes, and that, even when desirable outcomes
were achieved, the reforms were often not sustainable. One of the complaints of the review was that
there was no evidence that reforms aimed to produce local ownership of the reform culture. In a
statement that is far too much like the statements in the latest ADB review, Girishankar et al. (1999,
p. 2) wrote:
Downsizing and capacity building initiatives failed to produce permanent reductions
in CS [civil service] size and to overcome capacity constraints in economic
management and service delivery. There was no evidence that civil servants began to
“own” and follow formal rules such as codes of ethics in any meaningful way. As a
result, institutional reforms could not substantially limit arbitrary action by
bureaucrats or politicians.
In its reports, ADB has been stating for over a decade the need to understand domestic
culture in the PICs. But what is noticeable in the reports is the lack of any depth in the analysis of
Pacific political culture.
5. Understanding Pacific Culture: How Pacific Political Culture
and the Modern World Intersect
If these are the views of the major development agencies, we should expect to see political,
sociological, and anthropological assessments of reform efforts. However, these types of analyses seem
to be entirely lacking within the aid community—except on the fringes and in NGOs. To
understand the limited success of recent governance reform efforts, aid agencies need to develop a far
better understanding of the motivations of the decision makers within Pacific political regimes and
the public sector.
In this study, I focus only on the political aspects of Pacific culture: concepts of leadership
and obligations within political hierarchies. Modern institutions, such as public service departments,
elected politicians, and central banks, coexist with a Pacific political culture. It is the Pacific political
culture, with its norms and expectations of behavior, that largely determines how politicians and
public servants will behave. Failure to account for Pacific political culture has undermined much of
the recent governance reform efforts in the Pacific.
The developed country anticorruption commissions and governance bodies will not be
successful in a political culture that does not have the same developed country norms. Successful
public sector reforms in developing countries will probably not simply be a matter of making those
public sector institutions look more like developed country institutions. Evans (2008), in a
background paper for the recent IEG review of World Bank programs, noted that copying public
service employment models from developed countries has not worked (p. 6):
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
... although the civil services of many developing countries have been legally
organized following the basic model outlined above, in practice they perform
differently than their developed country counterparts. Thus, most developing
countries have instituted merit selection rules, but in practice selection continues to
be clientelistic and political.
Research such as Nurnberg’s (1995) Managing the Civil Service: Reform Lessons from
Advanced Industrialized Countries may be headed down precisely the wrong path for developing
countries.
Pacific political culture remains much the same as it was in pre-colonial times. Of the
population of the PICs, 80% still live a rural or island village lifestyle. Moreover, most of the
political leaders and other influential members of the PICs grew up in pre-independence times. The
norms and expectations that guide the actions of these influential individuals are still those of the
Pacific political culture.
There are writings on “big man” political culture and its influence on the behavior of
modern Pacific politicians in political economy literature on “clientelism” from researchers such as
Kurer, Standish, and Fraenkel. The recent works of Fukuyama (2004, 2007a, 2007b, 2008) have
correctly concentrated on culture in the Pacific—particularly wantok networks and the big man 1
concept—as one of the obstacles to development. I believe that although big man political culture is
currently the main obstacle to governance reforms in the Pacific, there are elements of this culture
that are beneficial even today and that, given properly designed institutions, big man political culture
could be part of the solution to the Pacific’s development problems. Appropriately designed
institutions could leverage Pacific political values to achieve improved governance; but first, we have
to understand the political values involved.
6. The Tradition of the Big Man in Pacific Culture: Key Aspects
from a Governance Perspective
My emphasis here is on the proper role and behavior of leaders as perceived by Pacific cultures. The
terms that have traditionally been used in the anthropological and sociological literature are “big
man” for Melanesian cultures and “chief” for Polynesian cultures, although this usage has been
flexible. I will use the term “big man” to cover all Pacific cultures, as I wish to concentrate on the
commonalities of leadership norms across Pacific cultures, and because I wish to avoid preexisting
notions that readers might have with a term such as “chief.”
However, there were differences in how leaders behaved in different Pacific cultures and in
how different leaders behaved in the same Pacific culture. Within a culture a big man could arise due
to his skills as a hunter, a warrior, a public speaker, a store of cultural knowledge, or a political
organizer. My interest here is in the values that have survived the move from pre-European contact
societies to existing democracies. Some roles for big men, such as a hunter, a warrior, or a wise man,
have not survived this transition; but other roles, especially the orator and the political organizer,
1
The use of the term “big man” here is not intended to exclude women, as some of the “big men” are women. The term
“clientelism” is sometimes used in this context, but I wish to explicitly link the behavior of Pacific leaders back to traditional
Pacific cultural practices and “big man” is the term traditionally used to describe this political culture.
Governance Reform in the Public Sector in Pacific Island Countries
151
have thrived. It is these big men roles, and the values and expectations of society for them, that I will
concentrate on.
The tradition of the big man in Pacific cultures is one of a leader who distributes resources
to his network of supporters and in exchange derives status and influence from his supporters. The
“big man” system is quite unlike a feudal system in European history, although chiefly societies such
as Hawaii, Samoa, and Tonga were closer to a feudal system.
The concept of wantok can be related to the concept of the big man. Wantok is pidgin for
“one talk,” meaning a person who speaks the same language as oneself. For that reason, wantoks are
usually related by birth or by marriage. The supporters of a big man would certainly include many
wantoks. However, the concept of wantok—tied as it is to the clan—is much too narrow for modern
Pacific cultures. Today’s big men do not seek supporters only from within their clan. In fact, even in
traditional Pacific cultures, big men built relationships and sought support from people far outside
their clan.
The big man gains most of his political and social position by competitively vying against
other big men for supporters, rather than gaining a position by birth—although being from a
powerful clan certainly is an advantage. It is far less likely in a big man society that leadership will
automatically devolve from father to son. The leadership position is far less secure in a big man
society than it was for feudal lords, and even a Hawaiian chief’s hold on power was only maintained
by delivering resources to his supporters.
The big man has fewer powers to compel or coerce supporters, apart from threats to
withhold resources in the future. The big man is not materially as far above an average villager as a
lord was in a feudal society, although again the eastern Polynesia societies tended to have more assets
concentrated in the hands of big men.
A broad description of some of the variation among Pacific cultures is contained in Sahlins’
(1958) Social Stratification in Polynesia. Sahlins surveyed the political systems of 13 cultures from
Ontong Java and Tikopia in the now Solomon Islands to the Hawaiian islands and Easter Island. He
ranked these cultures according to their degree of social stratification—that is, the extent of the
differentiation between lower and upper groups. From most hierarchical to least hierarchical, he
ranked the different cultures into four groups:
I.
Hawaii, Tonga, Samoa, Tahiti
IIa.
Mangareva, Mangaia, Easter Island, Uvea
IIb.
Marquesas, Tikopia, Futuna
III.
Pukapuka, Ontong Java, Tokelau
The most hierarchical cultures were in the eastern parts of the Pacific (Polynesian), while
moving west (Melanesian) saw less hierarchical societies. Sahlins later spoke of an “upward west-toeast slope in political development in the Pacific” (1963, p. 204). 2
2
A possible area for future research is the fact that the pattern of governance reform successes and failures in the ADB review of
2009 matched Sahlins’ (1958) delineation of political hierarchies. The success stories in the ADB review, in Samoa and Tonga,
took place in societies that are the most hierarchical. In societies that are more traditionally hierarchical, it may well be easier to
push forward with reforms that produce developed country institutions. The failures recorded in the ADB review took place in
the less hierarchical cultures of the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
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Underlying these different Pacific political systems is a surprisingly large set of shared Pacific
political values that hold true across the spectrum of Pacific political systems. It is these
commonalities in Pacific cultural values and expectations of leaders that I wish to develop. The
literature I draw upon here are ethnographic studies by anthropologists and secondary analyses by
anthropologists and sociologists. I emphasize three features of Pacific political culture: the
importance of distribution, the obligation that flows from public gift giving, and the competitive
nature of big men.
Status Is Gained by Distributing Resources,
Not by Producing or Hoarding Them
Sahlins (1958) argued that big men across the Pacific derived their status from their position as
distributors of goods, rather than as producers (p. 5):
As dispensers of food and other goods... chiefs gained in prestige and extended their
political and ceremonial prerogatives.
In Pacific societies, production methods were inherently very small scale (e.g., small
landholdings or small fishing operations), even for the leaders of communities. Big men were not far
more productive than their neighbors, as compared with feudal lords in European history who would
personally own enormous amounts of land and labor. So Pacific leaders did not control production,
but they might have controlled how goods would be distributed.
A big man today can readily move into the role of a politician allocating public resources in
his district or a public servant awarding contracts. A big man would be much less likely to move into
a role as a merchant, a producer, or an investor in the Pacific, as these activities do not come with the
same status as a distributor. By distributing public resources, the big man acquires the same status
and influence as by distributing resources at a village level. The context has changed, but the values
have not.
This diversion of public resources is often labeled “corruption,” but these activities are
generally expected of big men. As long as the big man is diverting the resources to his supporters, and
not hoarding them for himself, it is an appropriate activity for a local big man under traditional
cultural norms.
Big men are also expected to be generous with their wealth. In the words of Malinowski
talking about his experiences in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and, particularly, the Trobriand Islands
(1932, p. 97),
A man who owns a thing is naturally expected to share it, to distribute it, to be its
trustee and dispenser. And the higher the rank the greater the obligation.... So that a
man of rank will have to hide away any surplus of these articles which he wants to
preserve for his further use.... Thus the main symptom of being powerful is to be
wealthy, and of wealth is to be generous.
While a big man does have control over a resource, he is not allowed to hoard the resource
for himself but should share it among the network. The more senior the big man, the greater the
obligation to provide and the larger the network of supporters to provide for.
Having control of a resource in a Pacific community is itself a political act and will bring on
the owner of the resource claims on the resource from the wider community. The literature on
Pacific entrepreneurship has identified the struggle to balance the needs of a small business with the
Governance Reform in the Public Sector in Pacific Island Countries
153
demands of the wider community in which the small business operates. In a survey of Palau small
businesses, Pollard (1995) wrote of steering a path between the success of the business and the
demands of the community. The small businessman, as the controller of a productive enterprise in
the community, will find himself a big man, whether that role is desired or not.
Describing a society in Moala in Fiji, Sahlins (1960) used the local term kerekere, which is
to ask for resources from a relative, but could be used in any kind of relationship. Sahlins described
the problem of refusing a request for resources as follows (p. 79):
... the only legitimate reason for refusing a request—except by lack of the solicited
item—is that the donor, by giving, would place himself in need. Even in that case a
refusal is sometimes difficult and is usually awkward.
Pacific societies have stories of big men killed by their own supporters over accusations of
hoarding, and Polynesian chiefs could only hoard resources by holding them in storehouses in public
view. The yam house of the big man serves a similar function in the Trobriand Islands described in
Malinowski (1921). The yam house is constructed with gaps in the beams so that supporters can see
the store of yams inside. The big man could not secretly store resources, as then he would be
suspected of unfairly distributing them.
Big men were expected to provide resources for their supporters, even at a cost to
themselves. To not be able to provide resources would constitute proof that a person was not a big
man.
7. Gifts Are Given in Public and Are Not Gifts but
Loans with Interest
The decision by early anthropologists to use the term “gift giving” for the exchange of resources in
the Pacific context was a distinctly inappropriate one. A gift in a Pacific political culture does not
come without obligations. A gift from a big man to a supporter comes with the obligation from the
person who receives the gift to repay the gift—usually with interest. By receiving the gift, the person
who receives it takes on an obligation to repay. This concept was termed “reciprocity” by
Malinowski (1926). Again, the choice of the term “reciprocity” is unfortunate, as reciprocity usually
means equal for equal, whereas gift giving in this context generally requires a larger repayment in the
future. This is also the moka system of the Hagen province in PNG, described in Strathern (1971),
and the kula ring in the Vitiaz Strait in northeastern PNG, described in Harding (1970).
A gift bestows status on the big man giving the gift. The gift bestows obligation on the
wantok who receives the gift, as it will have to be repaid with something even larger. Because the gifts
are means of gaining status for the big men, gift giving has to be public and preferably splashy. The
gift giving in the Pacific was done at large communal feasts with the village looking on.
Brown (1978) described the mogena biri or vegetable heap in the Chimbu province of PNG,
where one village invites another village to a feast. The village holding the mogena biri produces a
pile of vegetables “perhaps 50 to 200 feet in diameter and six feet high in the center” (p. 220), which
is made up of individual gifts from one person in the village to a person in the other village. The
mogena biri is usually planned with villages that produce foodstuffs that cannot be produced locally,
so that when the exchange mogena biri is held by the other village, the first village can receive
produce it cannot provide itself. Both villages assemble and each gift is announced and delivered.
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
The public aspect of gift giving means that the supporters of the person who receives the gift
also know what was exchanged. Those supporters will approach the person who receives the gift for
their share, and it will be difficult to refuse these demands. The public aspect of gift giving also
means that the gift and the obligation that the gift produces on the person receiving the gift are
acknowledged.
Thus there are two kinds of gifts in the Pacific. A gift among equals is more of a delayed
exchange. The receiver of the gift has to reciprocate the gift with his own gift—preferably an even
larger one. Then there is a gift from a big man to a supporter. As with kerekere in Moala, there is less
of an expectation that the supporter will be able to reciprocate. To accept a gift without being able to
reciprocate is an acknowledgment that the person who made the gift is a social superior.
The purpose of gift giving is often to gain advantage. As Lawrence (1971, p. 17) wrote,
“New Guinea ethnography affords many examples of local groups working hard to place their rivals
under obligations through prodigal contributions of work and co-operation in important
undertakings or through lavish hospitality.” Oliver (1955) describes a culture in Bougainville in
PNG where the giving of feasts in honor of others was a means of competition. To not be able to
reciprocate the feast would be to suffer shame. Big men were individuals best able to organize their
groups of supporters to provide resources to distribute at feasts.
8. The Big Man Position is Competitive and Political
Supporters are Fickle
With the high status for big men comes an obligation to provide resources for his network. To
maintain status, a big man has to continually find resources for his network or risk losing those
supporters to a competing big man.
In Dorney (2000), we see former PNG Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan talk about the
pressure on big men to deliver resources to supporters (p. 47):
Ideology is a luxury marginal members cannot afford. It becomes a case of delivering
the goods—a pragmatic approach... The Australian parties play Santa at every
Federal and State election. For us it is a full-time job!
There was variation across the Pacific, as noted by Sahlins, in the extent of political
hierarchies. However, even the Hawaiian kings were compelled by their supporters to distribute
resources. Sahlins (1963, p. 211) quotes David Malo’s Hawaiian Antiquities:
It was the practice of kings to build store-houses in which to collect food, fish... and
all sorts of goods. These store-houses were designed by the Kalaimoku [the chief’s
principal executive] as a means of keeping the people contented, so that they would
not desert the king.
In an interview that Sean Dorney (1999) recorded of a local big man, Sol Taro, in the
Highlands PNG district of Lagiap–Porgera in 1977, Mr. Taro discussed the 10,000 kina (K) in cash
he had received from the local member of Parliament for delivering the votes in his village: “I have a
big family and that K10,000, I couldn’t hold onto it.”
Even the form of the bribe is indicative of the nature of Pacific political culture. The bribe
to gain the votes of the village in this case was K100,000 worth of vehicles, money for a church, and
only K10,000 in cash. And even that cash could not be held onto by the big man who received it.
Governance Reform in the Public Sector in Pacific Island Countries
155
Here, a powerful local man, who could guarantee the votes of his village for a politician, could not
stop his own supporters from taking from him all that he had received. The fact that the gift from
the local Parliament member was K100,000 worth of vehicles and only K10,000 cash was also a sign
that this was a big man gift. No doubt, the whole village would have shown up to see the local
politician hand over the vehicles to Mr. Taro in a lavish ceremony. An event like this guaranteed to
the politician that Mr. Taro acknowledged the gift in front of his own supporters. To back out on
his promise to the politican after a big display of gift giving would be shameful for Mr. Taro—
unless, of course, another politician came to the village with an even bigger pile of gifts to distribute.
In big man societies, the position of big man is a contested one, gained competitively, rather
than an inherited position of leadership gained by birth or election. This contest means that big men
are constantly vying to obtain resources to maintain or increase their network. Any person can
become a big man simply by force of personality and success at attracting supporters. This
competition between big men and the lack of any permanent hierarchy is a contributing factor in the
current failure to establish stable political parties in the Pacific.
In Pacific societies such as Samoa that were more highly stratified before European contact
according to the Sahlins’ ranking, modern political parties and governments have been more stable.
It seems likely that more hierarchical societies would have placed a higher value on traits such as
political loyalty that today support a more stable system of government in those countries.
9. Does Big Man Political Culture Explain the Failure to Move
Forward on Governance?
While the political institutions of the Pacific have changed to mimic the government systems of
modern democracies, the political culture of the Pacific is still the same as it was before European
contact. The norms and expectations of behavior are those of big man systems housed in Europeanstyle office buildings. On the whole, buildings change faster than cultures.
In today’s Pacific societies, the big men still exist but they have moved to where they can
seek to control the centralized resources in the modern government systems. The big men have
moved into influential positions in the government, either through politics or in the public service,
and aim to use their positions to divert government spending or control the awarding of lucrative
contracts.
But the indicators of governance in the Pacific are not much worse than other lessdeveloped countries at similar income levels. As Fukuyama (2008) pointed out, the “wantok
problem” is not unique to the PICs. All countries have individuals who seek to divert public
resources to their own interests. The only difference between countries is the selection of who to
divert the money to—political campaign contributors, fellow clan members, family members, or
business associates—and how the corruption is perceived. It is here that political culture matters.
The perception of corruption by Pacific islanders is governed by the norms and expectations
within Pacific societies. Big men’s diverting public resources to their own uses is expected by voters,
as that’s what big men do. Corruption is perceived to be a problem by a Pacific islands voter only
when it is a big man in another network diverting public resources away from that voter, or if the
diversion is carried out in secret. One’s own big man diverting public funds to hold a party in a
voter’s town is never seen as a problem. It’s the other big men who are corrupt.
So, we see the seemingly contradictory case of voters complaining about corruption but yet
voting for the same politicians to get back into power. Standish (2007) expressed puzzlement about
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
the PNG voters’ seeming indifference to poor performance by politicians. But it is simply an
expression of Pacific cultural values. Pacific voters are only unhappy that it might not be their big
man who is bringing in the resources to distribute.
Big man cultural values also explain the relative successes and failures that we observe in
governance reform in the Pacific, for example, from the 2009 ADB review. If the problem were only
lack of capacity or lack of a local “champion,” then we would expect public sector reforms to all
succeed or all fail in a country. Instead, what we observe is that reform programs succeed in public
finance ministries such as finance and treasury, but fail in other ministries such as forestry, fisheries,
public works, education, and health. Why does reform work in one ministry but not in others?
One possible answer, which fits with a big man culture but not with other explanations, is
that it is the ministries controlled by big men in which the reforms fail. The public finance ministries
write the checks, but it is ministries such as forestry, fisheries, public works, education, and health
that distribute resources and award contracts. It is simply not in the interest of Pacific big men that
proper oversight exists in the ministries that control distribution, as that would hinder the big men’s
task of distributing resources to their supporters.
Thus, big man political culture provides an explanation for the failure of post-crisis
governance reform in Solomon Islands, where extensive resources only managed to restore the
original low level of government effectiveness after the political crisis. The answer is that the big men
of Solomon Islands do not desire an effective public sector with full accountability, accurate financial
accounting, and effective governance, as that would limit their ability to distribute resources, which
is the source of their political legitimacy.
10.
What Can Be Done? Changing Culture or Using Culture?
Little can be done to change culture from the outside. To try to affect cultural norms, aid agencies
might focus on empowering domestic groups that can push for reform. Agencies can try to
strengthen internal governance bodies within the public sector, such as ombudsmen and auditorsgeneral, while recognizing that these agencies will receive very little domestic support and even will
invite difficulties. Building anticorruption bodies in developing countries does not appear to have
had much success, however.
Aid agencies could also attempt to shift cultural norms and expectations of leading
politicians and public servants. Overseas training of promising public servants and other individuals
might start this process. Moving individuals to overseas institutions where norms and expectations
are different has been credited with some of the successful reform programs in Central and Latin
America. This might also be done by taking individuals out of the Pacific—a reverse Enhanced
Cooperation Program—and placing them in a developed country public sector position as a training
opportunity, but also as a way of shifting values.
A longer-term strategy would be to improve primary and secondary education in the PICs
and to promote greater openness to international trade. However, these efforts are not likely to bring
about change in the near future. Although they could be useful, it may be better to work with
existing political values in the Pacific in the short term, having in mind that it is the political culture
of the whole society that is mostly relevant and that culture takes a very long time to change.
Too much of the current governance reform effort consists of installing developed country
institutions, such as anticorruption bodies, in the hope that Pacific political values will change to
such an extent that these bodies will function as they do in developed countries. But Pacific culture
Governance Reform in the Public Sector in Pacific Island Countries
157
will not change to fit institutions. Rather, it is the institutions that need to change to fit the existing
values.
Given that Pacific political values are likely to remain the same for the next generation at
least, aid agencies should attempt to develop institutions in the Pacific that are a better match with
Pacific values. Development of appropriate institutions has for a long time been a theme in the
reports of the international development agencies, but the work required to develop appropriate
institutions has never been done. What makes this task even more difficult is that culturally
appropriate institutions for the Pacific may not work well in sub-Saharan African countries, or even
that culturally appropriate institutions for Melanesian countries may differ from those for their
Polynesian counterparts.
11.
Conclusion
Current governance reform efforts in the Pacific by international aid agencies are not working. These
efforts to improve governance rely to a large extent on bringing developed country institutions, such
as ombudsmen and auditors-general, into Pacific societies. A major stumbling block facing these
efforts is the differences in political values between the developed countries whose institutions are
being copied and the political values of the Pacific societies into which the institutions are being
introduced.
Past reviews of governance reform have identified a lack of understanding of local culture
and a lack of local support as key reasons for the failure of governance efforts. But these findings have
not generated efforts to research Pacific political culture in international aid agencies. Unfortunately,
it is these same Pacific political values that are preventing the developed country institutions from
operating as they do in developed countries.
A better path to follow is to develop public institutions that reflect existing Pacific political
values. There are aspects of Pacific political values that would promote more effective governance if
they were used in the right manner. An advantage of this approach for international aid agencies is
that local support is far more likely to be forthcoming if governance reforms align with existing
cultural norms.
Pacific societies were very heterogeneous prior to contact with Europeans, and remain so;
but there are some political values that cross all Pacific societies. Distribution of resources remains a
key role of Pacific political leaders, and current big men will maneuver into positions of control over
the distribution of public funds. Bureaucracies in the Pacific have not been able to keep big men
(either inside the public service or outside) from distributing resources, and anticorruption bodies
have not been able to improve this situation—as could have been predicted from the 2008 IEG
report. Resource distribution is an inherently political act in the Pacific.
If we wish to see an efficient public sector in the Pacific, we would have to keep the big men
out. This can only be done if the distribution of resources outside the public sector is carried out at
the political level, so that prospective big men are attracted to politics rather than to the public
sector. Admittedly, this is an impossible task, as many functions in the public sector are distributive;
but reforms might attempt, as much as possible, to have resource distribution done by elected
officials outside the public sector.
As much as possible, distribution of resources inside the public sector—jobs and
contracts—should be separated from the daily administration of the ministries. The awarding of
jobs, promotions, and contracts will take on a political aspect in a Pacific context. Distribution of
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resources such as these should not be left under the direct or indirect control of a minister, as the
minister will use them for personal political gain.
Aid agencies should be careful to structure their development policies to take account of the
“big man problem.” National development banks, as ready distributors of cash, should never be set
up in the Pacific. The problem is not that development banks are too alien to Pacific cultures to
work; rather, development banks look exactly like a very Pacific concept—the chief’s storehouse or
the pile of gifts at a feast. The development bank is a collection of goods to be distributed by a big
man to shore up his support. The fact that no development bank has ever succeeded in the Pacific
should not be a surprise when considered in this light.
Likewise, direct cash payments to politicians to distribute to their constituents (“slush
funds”) such as the Rural Constituency Development Fund in Solomon Islands or the Electoral
Development Funds in PNG, fit perfectly into the distribution role of big men. The local member is
given a sum of money to distribute to the district he represents. In the Pacific context, the big man
will distribute this money to maximize his political support among his existing supporters or
potential supporters. Once introduced, these schemes will prove impossible to undo and will likely
only grow in time.
Second, there is a feature of Pacific political culture that can be used to improve
governance—the public display of gift giving. Transparency is a Pacific cultural value—if not quite
the same sort of transparency as might be considered appropriate in a developed country context.
Transparency in a Pacific context requires that the big man openly distributes resources. The gift
giving should be done at a public event, such as a feast or a ceremony. If distribution is moved out of
the public service and into the political domain, then all distribution should be required to be out in
the open.
But this is not the same as it would be in a developed country. A Pacific politician might
deliver resources to a supporter in exchange for political support; but in a Pacific context, this is a
perfectly appropriate action for a politician as long as it is done openly. It is necessary that the
exchange be publicly viewed and recorded.
In a case such as the Electoral Development Funds in PNG, we might require that all funds
be exchanged in public and that all transfers be recorded, but not insist that the auditor-general track
down funds and look for evidence of corruption. Admittedly, this is not quite what Transparency
International would wish to achieve in PNG, but it is surely an improvement on the current
administration of the Electoral Development Funds in which, it seems, spending is not being tracked
at all.
This emphasis on public gift giving and suspicion of private gifts in Pacific political culture
also provides a possible basis for an anticorruption campaign that fits into Pacific values. An
anticorruption campaign could focus on secret bribes as corruption, rather than big men delivering
resources to their supporters. If much of the distribution of public funds can be moved to a political
sphere and handled openly, then secretive bribery can be attacked as contrary to Pacific values.
Third, a feature of Pacific political culture that might work toward improved governance is
the competition between big men. A better governance system might be to institutionalize the big
man networks at the district level, as the big men are still the legitimate political figures in that arena.
Instead of relying upon public service administrators to deliver funds to a district, local distribution
might be moved into the local political sphere. A more culturally appropriate system would be to
have a local council of elected big men oversee, together with the local member, the delivery of the
resources from the central government.
Governance Reform in the Public Sector in Pacific Island Countries
159
Fukuyama (2007a) questioned whether we should have such a negative view of the slush
funds in the Pacific. Slush funds are, as mentioned above, very much in line with Pacific political
culture. Rather than attempting to get rid of slush funds, a better response may be to recognize the
big men and include them explicitly in the process of government through the distribution of the
district funds. If the distribution of funds were to be conducted in the open and decisions about
distribution involved many local leaders, then the process would be an improvement over current
processes, as well as being a process that Pacific cultures would recognize.
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8 Achieving Revenue
Reform in the Pacific
Taking Revenue Policy and Administration
Advice from Intent to Reality
by Margaret Cotton
ABSTRACT
Technical assistance on revenue policy and its administration for Pacific island countries has been
based on a common framework for the last decade. Notwithstanding the broad commonality of
advice on reform of revenue policy and administration, many Pacific countries have difficulty
implementing the reforms. This research provides guidance on issues affecting achievement of
revenue reforms in Pacific island countries.
Cotton (2008) found there was a relationship between recipients’ perception of the
magnitude of revenue reforms and the outcomes. This research expands on the Cotton study and
identifies the common revenue reforms across the Pacific that have met with difficulties in their
acceptance and implementation. It also identifies common constraints to achieving these reforms and
offers suggestions for addressing them. Understanding the common challenges and their causes will
inform the debate on aid effectiveness and political economy in the Pacific.
The opinions and conclusions expressed in this chapter are those of the author and are not
necessarily representative of opinions and conclusions of the Pacific Financial technical Assistance
Centre or the International Monetary Fund.
1. Introduction
Fiscal reform is on the agenda of most Pacific island countries (PICs) and has been for many years.
Trade reforms, including the move to free trade agreements, the pending changes in compact
funding for northern Pacific countries, and the recent volatility of remittances and tourism have
hastened the need for the PICs to review their fiscal policy and operational frameworks. Technical
assistance for revenue policy and revenue administration typically promotes a four-pronged approach
for improving fiscal sustainability and operational efficiency and effectiveness: (i) the introduction of
a broad-based, low-rate income tax, with few exemptions and discretions; (ii) the introduction of a
broad-based value-added tax with few exemptions and discretions; (iii) a reduction in reliance on
trade tariffs and sales taxes; and (iv) the introduction of comprehensive revenue administration
legislation establishing and standardizing the rights and obligations of the revenue administration
164 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
office, taxpayers, importers, and exporters. This advice has been extant for nearly a decade, yet many
PICs are still grappling with its implementation.
In a study of Pacific countries, Cotton (2008) identified a relationship between the
magnitude of the reform recommendations made in relation to revenue policy and revenue
administration and the implementation of the recommendations: the larger the reform was perceived
to be by the recipient of the technical assistance, the less likely it was to be implemented. Larger
reforms, although likely to be accepted and the changes commenced, were not likely to be
completed. Conversely, reforms that were perceived by the recipients as small were almost certain to
be completed. Availability of skills, cost, time frame, taxpayer feedback, and impact were all factors
found to influence the perception of the size of a reform. Political factors were also found to
influence the implementation of the recommendations. Cotton (2008) did not address why the
larger reforms were harder to implement, but recommended further research be undertaken to
ascertain if there are similar perceptions between recipients of the magnitude of common reform
recommendations and if there are similar outcomes and status of common recommendations.
This study picks up the question raised in Cotton’s research to determine if there are
revenue reform recommendations made to Pacific island administrations that are commonly
considered to be difficult to implement. The study also provides findings on the constraints creating
the implementation difficulties. By identifying constraints to achieving revenue reform, it is intended
that the findings will inform the debate on aid effectiveness and the political economy of the Pacific.
The findings should also provide guidance to aid agencies on how revenue administrations can best
be assisted to address these constraints.
The source data for the current study were obtained from recommendations made to
ministers of revenue and chief executive officers of revenue administrations by tax policy and
administration technical advisors from the Pacific Financial Technical Assistance Centre 1 (PFTAC)
from 2002–2007. The recommendations given to the three countries with the highest level of
technical assistance were subjected to detailed content analysis that built on the findings from the
Cotton (2008) study. A combination of content analysis and group workshops was used in the
current study. The content analysis was undertaken to identify and categorize the revenue reforms
that commonly meet challenges in acceptance and implementation. The findings from the content
analysis were presented to members of the Pacific Islands Tax Administrators Association (PITAA)
and a group workshop to identify the common features of these reforms and constraints that make
their implementation difficult.
The research shows that a wide range of revenue reform recommendations were made in the
period 2002 to 2007, few of which were common to the three countries researched. Eight categories
of common reform recommendations were identified as commonly facing difficulty in
implementation. These eight categories split evenly into reforms of a policy nature and reforms of a
revenue administration nature. Policy reforms causing difficulty in implementation were (i) the
introduction of a value-added tax (VAT), (ii) the introduction of revenue administration legislation,
and (iii) tariff rate changes. Revenue administration reforms commonly facing difficulty in
implementation were in the areas of (i) audit and communication strategies, (ii) the adoption of selfassessment and post-clearance audit principles, and (iii) the adoption of business analysis techniques.
1
Based in Fiji, PFTAC is staffed by technical advisors on the International Monetary Fund’s roster of experts and is funded from
aid monies provided by the governments of Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and New Zealand, and the Asian
Development Bank.
Achieving Revenue Reform in the Pacific 165
Both policy and administration recommendations addressing the removal of exemptions and
associated discretionary decision making faced challenges in implementation.
The constraints causing delays in accepting and implementing these reform
recommendations were identified in an effort to help predict future recommendations that might
face similar implementation challenges. Suggestions are made as to how technical assistance can be
adapted to improve the effectiveness of aid aimed at improving the implementation of revenue
reform.
2. Contextual Background
The Pacific islands region has had both American and Anglophone influences on the development of
its fiscal policy frameworks. For the purposes of this study, the Pacific islands region includes the
following countries: the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea
(PNG), the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Samoa, Solomon Islands,
Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. All 15 countries are low or low-middle income countries.
Notwithstanding the diversity of the Pacific islands region, it is possible to identify subregional
groupings that put revenue reform technical assistance into context. This study does not cover the
French-influenced PICs.
Overview of Revenue Policy and Administrative Frameworks
in Pacific Island Countries
Generally speaking, the American-influenced Micronesian countries (the Marshall Islands, the FSM,
and Palau) have rudimentary tax systems using a mix of gross revenue tax and presumptive tax in
place of business income tax, and are heavily reliant on import duties and payroll taxes. The more
Anglo–Australian influenced Micronesian countries (Kiribati and Nauru) are also heavily reliant on
payroll taxes and trade tariffs, although Kiribati does have a simple business income tax. Conversely,
the Anglo–New Zealand influenced Polynesian countries (the Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa, Tokelau,
Tonga, and Tuvalu) have more comprehensive tax systems comprising business income taxes, VAT,
and payroll tax in their policy frameworks: they are increasingly less reliant on trade tariffs. The
Melanesian countries are, perhaps, the most diverse in terms of their revenue frameworks. Fiji and
PNG have comprehensive policy frameworks and each has established its revenue agency as an
independent authority. Solomon Islands has a plethora of goods and sales taxes and a rudimentary
income tax, while Vanuatu, operating an offshore investment center, largely relies on VAT and trade
taxes. Of all the PICs, only Tonga has all-inclusive revenue administration legislation consolidating
and standardizing the powers and obligations of taxpayers, importers and exporters, and the revenue
administration office. Table 8.1 outlines the high level of diversity of the Pacific’s revenue policy
framework.
166 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Table 8.1: Summary of Pacific Island Countries’ Revenue Policy and Administration Frameworks
Income Tax
Business
Person-al
Indirect Tax
Gross
Revenue
Sales
Tax/
Goods
Tax
Administration
Value
Added
Tax
Cook
Islands
9
9
9
Fiji
9
9
9
Kiribati
9
9
Independent
Revenue
Authority
9
9
Papua New
Guinea
Marshall
Islands
Micronesia,
Federated
States of
9
9
9
9
9
9
9
Tonga
9
9
–
9
9
9
9
9
9
9
9
9
9
b
9
9
9
9
9
9
9
9
9
9
–
9
9
9
9
–
9
9
9
9
9
Solomon
Islands
Tuvalu
9
9
9
Tokelau
9
9
9
Import
Tariffs
9
9
9
Samoa
Revenue
Administration
Act
9
9
Palau
Combined
Tax
Customs
Agency
9
9
Nauru
Niue
Within
Ministry
of
Finance
Imports
–
9
9
9
9
c
–
–
9
–
9
Vanuatu
9
9
9
– = not applicable.
a
Or the equivalent of this ministry.
b
Separating in 2009/2010.
c
The revenue agency is independent of the Ministry of Finance; however, the chief commissioner is the minister of finance.
Source: Author's compilation.
9
–
–
9
9
Pacific Financial Technical Assistance Centre
To overcome difficulties in meeting the technical assistance requests of small island countries, the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), in collaboration with donor agencies from Australia, Japan, the
Republic of Korea, and New Zealand, and the Asian Development Bank, established in 1993 the
Pacific Financial Technical Assistance Centre (PFTAC). Based in Fiji, PFTAC, provides technical
assistance in four core areas: public financial management, macroeconomic and financial statistics,
finance sector supervision, and tax policy and revenue administration. The IMF engages long-term
advisors to provide full-time technical assistance in each of these four areas to the PICs served by the
center. Short-term advisors are also engaged as needed. The data for the current study were obtained
from revenue reform recommendations provided by PFTAC technical assistance advisors.
The IMF and PFTAC are not the sole providers of revenue reform technical assistance in
the Pacific. However, they are recognized, arguably, as the primary providers of tax policy advice and
for that reason were chosen as the source of the recommendations used in this study. It is recognized
that technical assistance for tax administration and customs is provided by a range of agencies
including, but not limited to, Australia and New Zealand revenue agencies, the Asian Development
Bank, the World Customs Organization, the Oceania Customs Organisation, and the Pacific Islands
Achieving Revenue Reform in the Pacific 167
Forum secretariat. To the extent that customs recommendations are addressed in this study, it has
been acknowledged by the Oceania Customs Organisation that the recommendations reflect regional
best practice.
3. Literature Review
This study brings together three complementary disciplines: aid effectiveness, change management,
and cross-cultural management. This section briefly canvasses salient literature from these disciplines
and outlines in some detail the Cotton (2008) study, and then draws the theories together in the
context of revenue reform technical assistance in the Pacific islands region.
Aid Effectiveness Literature
Aid effectiveness literature suggests technical assistance typically recommends “big push”
transformational changes and that this approach to development assistance is not appropriate for
developing countries. An approach that begins with where the countries are and sees the changes
through their eyes is claimed to be more effective in achieving the desired changes (Ellerman 2007).
To be helpful, the technical assistance requires autonomy and ownership on the part of the recipient,
and the leader must understand the change and take responsibility for implementing the change
(Abonyi 2002; Bucknall, Allan, and Vaai 2004; Ellerman 2004a, 2007; Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development 2005; Pronk 2001, 2003; Sobhan 2002; World Bank 2005).
Abonyi (2002) suggests that at the government level this translates into three dimensions:
understanding, intent, and capability. Without these dimensions, governments are often accused of
lack of commitment to the reform. Like Ellerman (2004a, 2007), Abonyi suggests that a perceived
lack of ownership or commitment may actually be a result of differences in understanding from the
aid agency, or lack of capacity to proceed due to political resistance or institutional capacity
constraints (p. 41).
Change Management Literature
Change management literature divides change into two categories: transactional and
transformational. Transactional changes are small, continuous changes that occur gradually. They are
small scale, are less drastic, enhance efficiency, and do not affect the core of the organization (Devos,
Buelens, and Bouckenooghe 2007). Transformational changes are big, episodic, more radical
changes, which can be disruptive and result in a complete change in the fabric of the organization. In
a business context, transactional changes relate to, among other things, structure, management
practices, and systems (policies and procedures), whereas transformational changes relate to the
external environment, leadership, mission and strategy, and organizational culture.
Change management theorists suggest people can be overwhelmed by big transformational
changes to such an extent that they do nothing. However, where changes are small and transactional
in nature, people are not overwhelmed and are able to make a series of small changes leading to a
bigger overall change (Bryson 1988; Weick 1984). This process leads to a “success breeds success”
outcome. Thus, a strategy of small wins informed by an overall strategic direction is most likely to be
successful (Bryson 1988, p. 41).
Cross-Cultural Management Literature
Cross-cultural management literature suggests it is inappropriate and ethnocentric to assume that
theories and models developed in one cultural context will apply in other cultural contexts (Adler
168 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
1983). This literature is of tangential importance only, but warrants mention because many technical
assistance providers engage consultants who are not from the same cultural, academic, and
organizational backgrounds as the recipient of the technical assistance, and therefore may not
perceive the nature of the changes through the same lens as the recipient.
The proposition drawn from these three disciplines is that where the recipient sees the
change contained in technical assistance recommendations as large (transformational), they may feel
so overwhelmed by the changes required that they do nothing. With the added dimension of
different cultural, academic, and organizational backgrounds, it is probable that the technical
assistance provider’s perception of the changes required will be different from the recipient’s.
Summary of Cotton (2008)
Against that theoretical background, Cotton (2008) examined whether the degree of the change
content in revenue reform recommendations made by PFTAC revenue advisors in the period 2002–
2007 affected the implementation of the recommendations. The study assessed whether the
recommendations were of a transformational or transactional nature, using conventional definitions
of those terms. As part of the study, the recipients of the recommended reforms were asked to rate
the size of the reforms from their perspective. To ascertain whether the size of the reforms affected
their implementation, the recipients were also asked to rate the outcome of the reform
recommendations (accepted, rejected, or no decision yet) and the status of the recommendations
(completed, started but not yet finished, and not yet started). The author was then able to compare
the differences in perception between the recipients’ perspective of the size of the reforms and the
consultant advisors’ perspective, as deduced from conventional definitions of the size of the changes
recommended. The study also included analysis of the impact the perceived degree of change had on
implementation of the recommendations.
The Cotton study found the majority (97%) of the reforms were transactional reforms
when assessed using conventional definitions of transactional and transformational changes. At face
value, this finding belies the idea that most technical assistance recommends transformational “big
push” (Ellerman 2004b) change. However, when the same recommendations were rated by the
recipients, the majority of the reforms recommended were considered to be large. This difference in
perspective was graphically depicted in the Cotton study (p. 51) (Figure 8.1).
Achieving Revenue Reform in the Pacific 169
Figure 8.1: Difference Between Respondents’ Perspectives of Size and Content Analysis
Respondents
120
Content
analysis
Percent (%)
100
80
60
40
20
0
Large/transformational
Neither large
nor small
Small/
transactional
Size
Source: Cotton (2008)
Thus, notwithstanding that the revenue reform recommendations were not
transformational in the traditional North American academic context, they were seen as large by the
recipients. This point should not be lost on aid agencies which, as noted previously, typically engage
consultants with cultural, academic, and organizational backgrounds that are different from those of
the aid recipients.
The Cotton study did not find that the recipients were so overwhelmed by the magnitude
of the reforms that no action was taken. However, only 30% of the reforms rated as large by the
recipients had been implemented. Conversely, the smaller the perceived size of the reform the more
likely it was to be implemented. Table 8.2 shows the impact of size on the implementation status of
revenue reform technical assistance recommendations (see Cotton 2008: p. 44).
Table 8.2: Status of Reform Recommendations, by Size
Reform Recommendations
Large
a
Accepted, completed
No.
% share
389
117
30
Accepted, not yet started
35
9
Accepted, started not yet finished
83
21
134
35
20
5
No decision yet
Rejected
Neither large nor small
Accepted, completed
124
60
48
7
6
Accepted, started, not yet finished
39
32
No decision yet
10
8
8
6
Accepted, not yet started
Rejected
31
170 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Smallb
Accepted, completed
Accepted, not yet started
30
97
1
3
Accepted, started not yet finished
0
0
No decision yet
0
0
Rejected
0
0
a
Large includes more large than small.
b
Small includes more small than large.
Source: Cotton (2008).
Cotton found that 30% of the recommendations assessed as large (transformational) had
been implemented. The study concluded that the size of the recommended reforms as perceived by
the recipients had a clear effect on the implementation of the recommendations. It is worth noting
that these implementation rates are consistent with the 30% implementation norm for
transformational reforms in developed countries (Beer and Nohria 2000).
The Cotton study did not address causality nor did it consider whether the
recommendations that were found to be large, or were otherwise not yet implemented, were
common across the recipients. The current study addresses these points and identifies the revenue
reforms that are commonly considered to be difficult to implement. To a lesser extent, this study also
provides details on the constraints creating the implementation difficulties.
4. Study Design
The specific questions addressed in this study are as follows:
„
Which revenue reform recommendations are common to the participant countries?
„
Have common recommendations achieved the same outcomes and status in the PICs?
„
What are the constraints affecting the outcomes and status of these common
recommendations?
Population and Sampling
The population for this research comprises all technical assistance recommendations made in tax and
policy administration missions from 2002 to 2007 to the 15 PICs to which PFTAC provides
assistance: the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Palau, PNG, the Marshall Islands, the
FSM, Solomon Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Tokelau, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.
A preliminary review of the technical assistance reports issued during the review period
showed the total number of missions for each country ranged from none to 15 and the number of
recommendations per country ranged from one to in excess of 300. Given the focus of this research
on common reforms that have faced common difficulties, purposive sampling was undertaken to
identify the countries with the highest number of recommendations. This approach was considered
most likely to give a greater range of recommendations from which a higher degree of commonness
would likely be identified.
Purposive sampling identified the FSM, Solomon Islands, and Tonga as the countries
receiving the highest number of technical assistance missions. One advantage of this selection is that
it allows observations to be drawn across subregional groupings (i.e., Polynesian, Micronesian, and
Melanesian).
Achieving Revenue Reform in the Pacific 171
Data Collection and Analysis
Data were collected in two stages. First, a document review was undertaken to identify the common
technical assistance recommendations and the outcome and status of these common
recommendations. Second, a group workshop was held with the heads of revenue administrations
from 13 of the 15 PICs. The purpose of the workshop was to identify common constraints affecting
the outcome and status of the common challenging recommendations.
Content analysis, “the systematic, objective quantitative analysis of message characteristics”
(Neuendorf 2002, p. 1), is a recognized technique for analyzing large volumes of qualitative data for
similarity of messaging. The wording of the recommendations given to each country was unlikely to
be identical, making it necessary to use an analytical method recognized for describing the form
characteristics and substance of text (Berelson 1952). Content analysis is a recognized tool and is,
therefore, considered useful in the current study to identify recommendations of similar substance.
Care was taken to set clear parameters for defining commonality. Early indications of commonality
were tax type, tax policy, tax administration, and subsets within those high-level groupings. The
content analysis codebook ultimately used is in Appendix 8.1.
The most effective reliability testing of coding decisions (Krippendorff 2004; Lombard,
Snyder-Duch, and Campanella-Bracken 2002) is assessed by intercoder percentage agreement
(Lombard et al. 2002) and this approach was adopted in the study. Intercoder reliability percentage
agreement is the extent to which coding by two different coders of the same text achieves the same
result. The incumbent PFTAC tax policy and revenue administration advisor was asked to code the
recommendations to increase confidence in the coding scheme used in the study.
Preliminary findings from the content analysis were presented to the heads and senior staff
of Pacific tax administrations at PITAA’s 2009 conference in Nuku’alofa, Tonga. Discussions and
workshops about the findings were held to identify if other countries in receipt of similar
recommendations experienced the same difficulties with their implementation. Delegates were also
asked to comment on the cause of the implementation difficulties.
Simple statistical analysis was used to analyze the data obtained from the content analysis.
Descriptive data were computed to summarize PFTAC activity in member countries in the review
period and the content analysis data.
Assumptions and Limitations
For the purposes of this study, it was assumed that the recommendations of the three countries
selected for in-depth review are representative of the recommendations given to other PFTAC
member countries. However, it is acknowledged that focusing on common recommendations and
constraints at a regional level may overlook common recommendations and constraints that exist at a
subregional level. For example, a wider range of commonality may have been detected at subregional
level, particularly for the Micronesian countries facing implementation of comprehensive direct and
indirect tax policy reforms and revenue administration reforms.
The study focuses on perceptions of the constraints affecting implementation of technical
assistance reforms and does not take into account differences in tangible measures such as
organization size, human resource skills, reform budgets, and geography.
5. Findings
This section outlines the findings from the document review, content analysis, and group interviews
with the delegates at the 2009 PITAA conference.
172 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Findings from Document Review
A preliminary review of all the revenue technical assistance documentation was undertaken to
identify the number of revenue technical assistance missions made to each country, 2 the duration of
the missions, and the number of recommendations given in the review period. Table 8.3 outlines the
findings from this review. Many of the recommendations outlined significant policy and operational
changes for the revenue administrations involved, a fact that is, arguably, reflected in the number of
recommendations. An early question raised by this finding concerns the time frame over which small
revenue administrations (only Fiji and PNG have revenue administration offices with more than 100
staff) are, realistically, able to manage change on this scale.
Table 8.3: Summary of Revenue Sector Missions 2002–2007
Total countries with technical assistance
13
Total technical assistance missions
61
Average missions per country
5
Maximum missions
15
Minimum missions
1
Total mission days
706
Average mission days per country
54
Average mission days
12
Longest mission (days)
38
Shortest mission (days)
2
Total number of recommendations
Average number of recommendations
1,455
91
Maximum number of recommendations
143
Minimum number of recommendations
1
Source: Author's compilation from PFTAC files.
Findings from Content Analysis
The recommendations provided to the FSM, Solomon Islands, and Tonga from 2002 to 2007 were
analyzed using content analysis techniques to identify recommendations of a similar nature. The
findings from the content analysis are a combination of original data from the Cotton (2008) study
(specifically, the recipients’ perceptions of the size, outcome, and status of the reform
recommendations) and data obtained from additional content analysis categorizing the nature of the
recommendations. The balance of this section sets out the findings from the content analysis.
In the initial review, the recommendations were categorized into two types: policy and
administration. Policy recommendations were defined as recommendations outlining how the
government should approach taxation and the principles that should be applied when setting taxes.
These included recommendations for the repeal, enactment, or amendment of specific laws.
Administration recommendations were defined as recommendations outlining how the revenue
policy should be administered by the revenue agency, including people, processes, systems, time
frames, training, communications, and structures.
2
Only PFTAC technical assistance missions were counted. Missions directly from IMF headquarters were not included in this
data review.
Achieving Revenue Reform in the Pacific 173
Figure 8.2 shows the breakdown of the recommendations into policy and administration by
the perceived size of the recommendations. Of the 544 recommendations reviewed, 235 (43%) were
classified as policy reforms, and 309 (57%) were classified as administration reforms. Nearly 85%
(199) of the policy recommendations were considered to be large by the recipients, and slightly more
than 60% (190) of the administration recommendations were considered to be large. About 30%
(93) of the administration recommendations and 13% (31) of the policy recommendations were
thought to be neither large nor small. The data used is summarized in Appendix 8.2.
Figure 8.2: Size of Reform Recommendations by Category
Source: From surveys by the author.
Nearly 90% (274) of the administration recommendations were accepted by the recipients
but only 41% (98) of the policy recommendations were accepted. Nearly 10% (22) of the policy
recommendations were rejected and the balance (50%, 115) are still awaiting decision. All the
recommendations awaiting decision relate to Solomon Islands. Solomon Islands appears to have
taken an approach whereby the decision to accept a recommendation is made only once officials are
ready to commence implementing the recommendation. Whereas the FSM and Tonga have made
upfront decisions to accept the recommendations but may not have commenced implementation of
those recommendations at the time of this study. Because this difference in approach affects the
findings from this study, the “no decision yet” recommendations have been removed from analysis of
the current status of the recommendations. That is, only recommendations that have been accepted
have been analyzed further for status. Figure 8.3 shows the outcome of the recommendations by
category. A breakdown of these findings is in Appendix 8.2.
174 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Figure 8.3: Outcome of Reform Recommendations by Category
Source: From surveys by the author.
The findings suggest that 56% (207) of the accepted recommendations have been
completed. Administration recommendations are more likely to be completed (60%) than policy
recommendations (40%). Equal percentages (11%) of administration and policy recommendations
have not yet been started, and more policy recommendations (45%) than administration
recommendations (29%) have been started but not yet completed.
Figure 8.4 shows the status of accepted recommendations. A breakdown of these findings is
in Appendix 8.2.
Figure 8.4 Status of Accepted Reform Recommendations by Category
Source: From surveys by the author.
Achieving Revenue Reform in the Pacific 175
These findings suggest that if the success of technical assistance is measured in terms of
acceptance and implementation of the recommendations, revenue administration recommendations
are more likely to be successful than revenue policy recommendations. This finding is, arguably, too
general to be of value in understanding why policy recommendations meet difficulties in their
implementation, and which of the administration recommendations are harder to implement. To
help understand whether there are recommendations that commonly meet difficulties in their
implementation, a second content analysis exercise was undertaken to break the recommendations
down further within the policy and administration categories.
The policy recommendations were divided into the following subcategories: income tax,
VAT, customs, revenue administration, and other. The administration categories were also
subdivided: tax, VAT, customs, implementation, general, training, systems, communication, selfassessment, and large taxpayers. Another category, exemptions, was added, containing both policy
and administration recommendations. The definitions attributed to each of these subcategories are
outlined in the coding dictionary in Appendix 8.1.
Analyzing the recommendations by subcategory and the size attributed to them by the
recipients gives a more informative picture of the policy and administration recommendations
considered to be large and therefore potentially difficult to implement. Recommendations focusing
on tax administration, general business administration, and large taxpayer activity were most evenly
spread between “large” and “neither large nor small” recommendations. Of the policy
recommendations, only those relating to customs were considered to be “small.” The
recommendations in all the other subcategories were generally considered to be “large.”
Figure 8.5 shows the recipients’ perspective of the size of the recommendations in each
subcategory. A breakdown of these findings is in Appendixes 8.3 and 8.4.
Figure 8.5: Size of Reform Recommendations by Subcategory
100%
80%
Percentage
60%
Larger
40%
Neither
Smaller
20%
Category
VAT = value-added tax.
Note: Exemptions contain both policy and administration recommendations.
Source: Author's compilation.
Large taxpayers
Self-assessment
Communications
Systems
Training
Administrative general
Implementation
Administrative Customs
Administrative VAT
Administrative Tax
Policy Other
Policy revenue
administrative
Policy customs
Policy VAT
Exemptions
Policy including tax
0%
176 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Figure 8.6 shows the outcome of the recommendations in each subcategory. Both policy
and administration recommendations relating to VAT were more likely to be still awaiting a
decision, whereas income tax and revenue administration recommendations were only likely to be
awaiting decision if the recommendations were policy oriented. As noted earlier, the
recommendations where there has been “no decision yet” relate to one country, reflecting the
position of the Solomon Islands government that it is not yet ready to make a decision on these
recommendations. A breakdown of these findings is in Appendixes 8.3 and 8.4.
Figure 8.6: Outcome of Reform Recommendations by Subcategory
100%
Percentage
80%
60%
Accepted
40%
No
decision
Rejected
20%
Large taxpayers
Self-assessment
Communications
Systems
Training
Administrative
general
Implementation
Administrative
Customs
Administrative VAT
Administrative Tax
Policy Other
Policy revenue
administrative
Policy customs
Policy VAT
Exemptions
Policy including tax
0%
Category
VAT = value-added tax.
Note: Exemptions contain both policy and administration recommendations.
Source: Author's compilation.
Recommendations that relate to general revenue administration issues, management of large
taxpayers, training, and implementation of the technical assistance are more likely to be completed
than other administration recommendations. When accepted, VAT administration
recommendations are also more likely to be completed. Conversely, VAT policy recommendations,
when accepted, are least likely to be completed. Policy recommendations relating to customs are
more likely to be completed than other policy recommendations. Nearly 80% of the
recommendations relating to exemptions have been completed.
Figure 8.7 shows the status of the accepted recommendations. A breakdown of these
findings is in Appendixes 8.3 and 8.4.
Achieving Revenue Reform in the Pacific 177
Figure 8.7: Status of Accepted Recommendations by Subcategory
100%
Percentage
80%
60%
Completed
40%
Started not
yet finished
20%
Not yet
started
Large taxpayers
Self-assessment
Communications
Systems
Training
Administrative
general
Implementation
Administrative
Customs
Administrative VAT
Administrative Tax
Policy Other
Policy revenue
administrative
Policy customs
Policy VAT
Exemptions
Policy including tax
0%
Category
VAT = value-added tax.
Note: Exemptions contain both policy and administration recommendations.
Source: Author's compilation.
A final review of the recommendations was undertaken to identify recommendations that
were not accepted by at least two of the three countries, or if accepted were not yet completed. Table
8.4 shows those identified as common challenging reform recommendations.
Table 8.4: Common Challenging Reform Recommendations
Category
Subcategory
Recommendations
Customs
x
Tariff rate changes
Value-added tax (VAT)
x
x
x
x
Introducing a VAT
Introducing a revenue administration act
Standardizing and consolidating powers
Allowing information sharing between revenue
agencies
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Removal of sales taxes and other minor taxes
Developing an audit strategy
Developing a range of audit products
Introducing post-clearance audits
Using valuation databases
Using data analysis techniques
Developing a communications strategy
Developing public material including rulings
Improving the relationship with the private sector
Using self-assessment techniques, particularly for large
business
Removing legislative provisions for exemptions
Limiting discretionary exemptions
Revenue administration
Policy
Other
Tax
Customs
Communications
Administration
Exemptions
Source: Author.
Self-assessment
x
x
178 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
These findings were presented to the heads of Pacific islands tax administrations at their
2009 annual conference and a workshop was held to explore in more depth the constraints affecting
implementation of these recommendations. The next section outlines the findings from the
workshop and the feedback from the heads of tax administrations.
Findings from the Workshop
Exemptions
The common exemption-related recommendations concerned the need to reduce or remove
exemptions and limit the number of individuals with discretion to grant exemptions. Nine of the 13
countries represented 3 at the workshop commented on the challenges with recommendations relating
to exemptions. The common constraint for all countries was the political environment. This
constraint was said to be particularly challenging where the government is unstable and there are few,
but very influential, business lobbyists. Those countries that had implemented changes to their
exemption regimes had typically made internal changes first, often by establishing a committee to
review applications and create greater transparency.
Communication was also seen as a factor underlying the challenge of removing exemptions
and limiting the number of discretionary decision makers. Delegates commented that decision
makers were often not well equipped with prepared responses supporting a “no” decision. Delegates
also noted that exemption reforms were easier to implement when accompanied by taxpayer-friendly
reforms, such as tax rate reductions.
Policy: Value-Added Tax
Seven of the countries commented on challenges with recommendations to implement a VAT.
Reasons given for the challenges included the general “mystery” surrounding a VAT, particularly for
the American-influenced Pacific islands, more so than the Anglo-influenced countries. For the FSM,
constitutional issues have also proved a significant challenge to accepting and implementing a VAT.
Delegates noted that the perceived negative impact of a VAT on consumer prices and the belief that
their tax administrations do not have the capacity to administer a VAT were also constraints.
Communication, awareness, and education of policy makers and legislators were seen as
essential to addressing their concerns and improving their understanding of the benefits, impacts,
and administration issues surrounding a VAT. One delegate commented that the principles of
income tax were hard for many countries new to the concept, and where a country is trying to
implement a VAT without preexisting knowledge of income tax principles, the VAT concepts are
not readily comprehensible. In many cases the delegates indicated their countries preferred to focus
on improving the administration of the existing revenue agency before committing to a fundamental
new tax like a VAT.
Policy: Revenue Administration
The common challenging reform recommendations under the subcategory revenue administration
concerned the implementation of a revenue administration act that would standardize and
consolidate administration powers and procedures, and allow information sharing between tax and
customs agencies. Six delegates commented on the challenges of implementing a revenue
3
The countries represented were the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Palau, PNG, the Marshall Islands, the FSM,
Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Vanuatu. Tokelau and Tuvalu did not have delegates at the conference.
Achieving Revenue Reform in the Pacific 179
administration act. Challenges to implementing a revenue administration act fell into two groups:
challenges faced by countries that were implementing revenue administration policies as part of a
wider tax reform (usually involving implementation of a VAT and an income tax) and challenges
where the legislation was being implemented in isolation. Where revenue administration reform is
part of a wider reform package, the revenue administration component was seen as a lesser part of the
package. Comprehensive reform packages require significant coordination of all stakeholders and
understanding of a plethora of new concepts; consequently, the revenue administration components
received a lesser degree of attention. The suggestion was made that a more piecemeal approach might
have made the magnitude of the changes less overwhelming and given more focus to revenue
administration reform.
Countries that were implementing revenue administration reforms in isolation commented
that the primary challenges faced were internal disputes over whether, and how, to standardize
powers and procedures between different parts of the organization. These internal disputes were
particularly challenging where the revenue agency operated a combined tax and customs function
and is trying to standardize powers and procedures and share information across and between the
two functions.
One American-influenced country noted that state and national constitutional issues
concerning rights to tax posed a significant constraint in implementing the revenue administration
reforms.
Policy: Other
Common recommendations in these categories related to removal or reduction of trade tariffs and
other minor taxes. Delegates noted that constraints to the removal or reduction of trade tariffs and
other minor taxes arose because these recommendations were directly linked with other reforms
facing implementation challenges. Decisions on reductions in tariff rates and the removal of minor
taxes hinged largely on decisions being made in relation to VAT, and until VAT policy decisions
were made and implemented these other reforms could not be implemented.
Administration: Self-assessment, Customs, and Tax
Self-assessment, post-clearance audit, the use of data analysis techniques for risk profiling, and the
introduction of a range of audit techniques to address identified risks were the most common
recommendations under this heading. The underlying concern reflected by nearly all delegates with
the introduction of these reforms was the perceived levels of compliance in the community. Selfassessment and post-clearance audit principles require an attitudinal change that accepts that the
response to compliance risks needs to be balanced against the resources available and costs of
compliance. Delegates expressed much concern with these recommendations and commented that
revenue might be lost if these reforms were implemented.
Delegates noted the introduction of technology and revenue management systems to aid
with return and payments processing, built-in return checking, and macro risk analysis was often
seen as a prerequisite for adopting self-assessment and post-clearance audit principles. A second
policy initiative that was also raised as precursor to self-assessment was making wage and salary tax a
final tax. Revenue agencies that had taken this approach are delaying implementing self-assessment
principles and a range of audit responses until these preconditions are met.
180 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Lack of staff skills and training opportunities covering self-assessment, risk profiling, and
post-clearance audit principles were also cited as constraints in implementing these
recommendations.
Administration: Communications
Recommendations related to communications strategies for improving compliance, the development
of public information material, and developing proactive relationships with the business community
also posed a common challenge. These recommendations were considered to involve an attitudinal
shift from a strong focus on enforcement to a balance of enforcement and service, which requires
time and training. Delegates noted they faced communication difficulties arising from their island
geography. They also commented that shifting enforcement staff to “softer” service-based activities
when staff numbers are low may adversely impact revenue collected. This concern is compounded
because the ability to measure compliance improvements and dollar return from service activity is
difficult.
Countries that had made changes in this area tended to have either an individual staff
member with the requisite interpersonal skill, or an expatriate or returning staff member who had
experienced the benefit of these services in a developed revenue administration.
6. Discussion
Three key themes were noted in the scholarship behind this study:
„ To be effective, development assistance requires recipient ownership and autonomy (Abonyi
2002; Ellerman 2004a, 2004b, 2007; Pronk 2001, 2003).
„ From the recipients’ perspective, the degree of change required by revenue reform
recommendations is large (Cotton 2008) and can be overwhelming if the recipients are not
equipped to manage the changes (Weick 1984).
„ A strategy of achieving several small wins might be preferable to trying to manage large-scale
change (Bryson 1988; Weick 1984).
These themes are borne out in the current study.
To be Effective, Development Assistance Requires
Recipient Ownership and Autonomy
The empirical findings of this study suggest that policy recommendations are less likely to be
implemented than administration recommendations. Notably, two of the three recipients of the
reform recommendations reviewed were in public sector senior management positions; one was a
minister in the government of the day. Ownership and autonomy for implementing administration
changes is much higher than for policy changes, for a senior public sector manager. Even if the
recipient is a member of the government, policy changes, particularly revenue policy, have a reach
beyond the immediate minister responsible; the minister may have ownership but autonomy is
compromised. This difficulty arises because policy changes involve multiple stakeholders, each with
their own priorities and partialities, who need to be engaged and well-versed in the policy if the
changes are to have a modicum of success.
It is notable that the findings from the workshop suggest communication and
understanding on the part of politicians is a key constraint to implementing revenue policy changes.
This is not to cast aspersions on the intellect of the politicians; rather, it is a reflection of the wide
Achieving Revenue Reform in the Pacific 181
range of subjects competing, on a daily basis, for their attention. Even if the politicians responsible
have a good understanding of the changes necessary, and the requisite ownership and autonomy,
these factors must still be balanced against wider questions of relevance, timing, and their personal
desire for political survival (Abonyi 2002). Administration reforms, on the other hand, are more
likely to be within the jurisdiction of the change leader and can be implemented more easily. There
is, however, a qualification to this finding arising from the second key theme.
From the Perspective of the Recipient, the Degree of Change Required
by Revenue Reform Recommendations is Large and Can Be Overwhelming
If People Are Not Equipped to Manage the Change
Cotton (2008) found that the majority of revenue sector technical assistance recommendations
reviewed were large from the recipients’ perspective, although the study did not find that the
recommendations were overwhelming. Nevertheless, it is apparent from the workshop findings in
this study that there are instances where common constraints hamper implementation of the
recommendations. The findings suggest that inadequate communication and understanding is a key
constraint in implementing revenue reforms; that is, the change leaders are not equipped with the
requisite depth of understanding to be able to adequately and convincingly articulate the “what,”
“how,” and “why” of the reforms in a variety of forums after the technical assistance provider has
departed, which can result in little or no progress.
In the case of policy reforms, the findings suggest that a greater degree of communication
and understanding is necessary at the political level. In the case of exemption regime changes and
administration reforms (particularly self-assessment and post-clearance audit principles and customer
service communications), the findings suggest that inadequate communication and understanding is
a key constraint at operational level within the revenue agencies and with the agencies’ key
stakeholders. To the extent that change leaders do not fully comprehend the concepts and nuances of
the reforms recommended, they are not equipped to promote and lead the changes confidently.
Again, this is not a reflection of the intellect of the change leaders involved; rather, it is suggested,
this is a reflection of the differences in perspective of the size and complexity of the changes being
recommended.
Cotton (2008) clearly showed differences in perspectives between traditional definitions of
large and small changes and the recipients’ perspectives of the size of the revenue reform changes
recommended. To that end, technical advisors and aid agencies may consider a change leader who
understands the changes enough to adequately and convincingly communicate and implement them.
However, the PITAA delegates have indicated that the necessary degree of understanding is unlikely
to be the reality. Delegates noted ongoing access to guidance and mentoring is invaluable as their
understanding and appreciation of the nuances of the changes deepen.
A practical example of this difference in perspectives arises with the recommendations on
self-assessment and post-clearance audit principles. These principles are well established in developed
revenue agencies, reflect international best practice, and are adopted to enable revenue agencies to
balance resources available with risks identified. Delegates at the workshop indicated that a common
constraint to implementing these recommendations is the current low level of compliance in their
countries. Consequently, they feel constrained against adopting a more risk-focused approach that
they believe may not maintain revenue collection levels. Paradoxically, the principles behind these
recommendations suggest that focusing on risk compliance will improve collection levels, with
182 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
corresponding increases in revenue. This reflects a situation where the differences in perspective and
understanding of minutiae are adversely affecting implementation.
A Strategy of Several Small Wins might be Preferable
to Manage Large-scale Change
This theme is also borne out in the findings, particularly in relation to policy and exemption regime
changes. Underlying the implementation challenges of these changes were political, communication,
and comprehension constraints. Many delegates expressed concern that the reform packages they
were trying to implement were too big to manage in one package, and in hindsight may have been
easier to communicate and implement in a more piecemeal approach. This reasoning appears to be
behind the approach taken by Solomon Islands in its “no decision yet” stance on VAT-centered
recommendations. One delegate noted that politicians have a vast array of subjects vying for their
attention, and that it is often easier to present and debate a single manageable concept than a wideranging reform package where debate over any one item within the package may derail
implementation of the whole package. The average number of recommendations given to Pacific
islands region’s revenue administrations in the 6 years from 2002 to 2007 by PFTAC was 91. All
except two of the revenue administrations have fewer than 100 staff members, with many having less
than 50. Therefore, it is perhaps not surprising that the scale of reform is perceived as large, and that
delegates believed that an incremental approach might have been more manageable. To that end, a
series of small changes informed by an overall strategic direction (Bryson 1988) might face fewer
political and operational constraints.
7. Conclusion
The purpose of this study was to identify technical assistance recommendations for revenue reform
across the Pacific islands region that face common constraints and challenges to implementation.
The study reviewed the recommendations made to ministers of revenue and chief executive officers
of revenue administrations by PFTAC tax policy and administration technical advisors from 2002 to
2007. The recommendations made to the FSM, Solomon Islands, and Tonga were selected for
detailed review. A workshop was also held with PITAA delegates at their 2009 conference.
The findings from this research suggest a wide range of revenue reform recommendations
were made from 2002 to 2007, but few specific recommendations were common to each of the three
countries researched. Nine categories of common reform recommendations were identified as facing
difficulty in implementation. These eight categories split evenly into reforms of a policy nature and
reforms of a revenue administration nature. Policy reforms causing the most difficulty in
implementation were the introduction of a VAT, introduction of revenue administration legislation,
and tariff rate changes. Administration reforms commonly facing implementation constraints were in
the areas of audit and communication strategies, the adoption of self-assessment and post-clearance
audit principles, and the adoption of business analysis techniques. Reforms addressing the removal of
exemptions and associated discretionary decision-making powers faced implementation challenges
irrespective of their nature.
The common constraints causing delays in accepting and implementing the common
recommendations involved a combination of political economy, ownership, understanding, and
autonomy. Underpinning all of these constraints were communication issues that affected the change
leaders’ ability to convincingly communicate the changes to diverse audiences. This was most
obvious in the case of exemption regime reforms where decision makers, in the face of strong
Achieving Revenue Reform in the Pacific 183
opposition, were not well equipped with scripted responses enabling them to advocate for the
changes. Typically, those countries that had implemented changes to their exemption regimes had
either first made administration changes to improve decision making and transparency or had
aligned exemption regime changes with taxpayer-friendly reforms.
One of the study’s limitations derives from the purposive sampling method used. As noted
earlier, the policy and operational frameworks in which Pacific islands region’s revenue
administrations operate vary widely; there are, however, a number of similarities in the subregional
frameworks. This study used purposive sampling to identify those countries that had received the
greatest level of technical assistance, on the assumption that this would give the widest range of
recommendations. The sampling method used achieved that desired outcome; over one-third of the
recommendations made by the PFTAC revenue sector were reviewed. However, there was limited
commonality, notwithstanding the wide range of recommendations. If the sampling had been
conducted at the subregional level, it may have resulted in a greater number of common
recommendations because of the greater level of similarity between policy and administration
frameworks at the subregional level. This is most noticeable from the absence of common
recommendations related to income tax.
At the subregional level, the Micronesian countries are facing implementation of
comprehensive direct and indirect tax policy reforms, trade reforms, and revenue administration
reforms. There would be value in repeating this study focusing on that subregion, particularly the
American-influenced countries (the Marshall Islands, the FSM, and Palau) to increase understanding
of the constraints on implementing a value-added tax in their political and business environments.
Further, the study focuses on perceptions of the constraints affecting implementation of
technical assistance reforms and does not take into account differences in tangible measures such as
organization size, human resource skills, reform budgets, geography, and political environment.
The constraints identified potentially could be addressed with a few simple measures. Crosspollination of skills and knowledge between revenue administrations is possible and should be
encouraged. For example, now that many PICs have established a VAT, key staff from revenue
administrations that have implemented the reforms could assist those who are currently
implementing or considering such reforms. This may overcome some of the difficulties posed when
technical assistance providers do not see the changes through the eyes of the recipient. The same
opportunity presents, although to a lesser degree, for cross-regional implementation assistance and
guidance on revenue administration act reforms and internal administration reforms. At the regional
level, PITAA and the Oceania Customs Organisation provide opportunities for the exchange of skills
and knowledge.
As a final observation, it is worth noting that none of the delegates suggested the policy or
administration reforms were not relevant: the implementation constraints were their main concern.
To that end, technical assistance providers should not only provide advice on “what” needs to be
done but also sustained assistance on “how” to implement the advice. If comprehensive revenue
reform recommendations are warranted, additional assistance and support, even executive
mentoring, may be needed to increase the likelihood the recommendations will be implemented.
Technical assistance recipients have a corresponding responsibility to help providers see the changes
through their eyes.
184 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
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186 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Appendix 8.1: Content Analysis Coding Dictionary
Administration customs—administration recommendations specifically outlining how the customs
agency laws should be implemented and administered, but does not relate to general business
administration of the agency.
Administration general—recommendations relating to the general business administration of the
revenue agency, including staffing, infrastructure, structure, establishment of operational business
policies but does not include recommendations specifically relating to training, systems,
communication, self-assessment or large taxpayers.
Administration recommendations—how the tax policy should be administered by the revenue
agency including people, processes, systems, time frames, training, communication, and structures
provided the recommendation relates to legislating for the action.
Administration tax—administration recommendations specifically outlining how taxes should be
implemented and administered, including verification of assessments (audits), but does not relate to
general business administration.
Administration VAT—administration recommendations specifically outlining how the value-added
tax (VAT) should be implemented and administered, but does not relate to general business
administration.
Communications—recommendations relating to communications between the revenue agency and
staff, taxpayers, importers, private sector agencies, government agencies, and the wider community.
Exemptions—policy and administration recommendations specifically referring to the repeal or
amendment of legislative provisions relating to exemptions and tax holidays; discretions for granting
exemptions and tax holidays; extension of existing exemptions and tax holidays; and the
administration, both intra and ultra vires, of legislative provisions relating to exemptions and tax
holidays.
Implementation—recommendations outlining how the proposed revenue reforms should be
implemented, including engagement of advisors, timeframes, obtaining donor assistance and
establishing project reform teams.
Large taxpayers—recommendations relating to the administration of policies and processes for large
taxpayers including the establishment of a large taxpayer unit.
Policy income tax—policy recommendations specifically relating to principles and features of
income tax, but does not include how the income tax should be administered.
Policy customs—policy recommendations specifically relating to principles and features of customs
and excise law, but does not include how the customs and excise law should be administered.
Achieving Revenue Reform in the Pacific 187
Policy other—policy recommendations specifically relating to principles and features of other tax
laws, but does not include how those taxes should be administered.
Policy recommendations—how the government should approach taxation and the principles that
should be applied when setting taxes, usually reflected by recommendations for specific laws to be
enacted, repealed, or amended.
Policy revenue administration—policy recommendations specifically relating to principles and
features of revenue administration legislation, including registration, assessment, return and debt
collection, objections and appeals, penalties, access to information, and the rights and obligations of
taxpayers and the revenue administration agency.
Policy VAT—policy recommendations specifically relating to principles and features of VAT, but
does not include how the tax should be administered.
Self-assessment—recommendations relating specifically to implementation and administration of a
self-assessment model, but does not include recommendations relating to legislating for selfassessment.
Systems—recommendations relating to information technology and computer systems and to the
registration of taxpayers.
Training—recommendations relating to the training of revenue agency staff, taxpayers, importers,
private sector agencies, government agencies and the wider community.
188 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Appendix 8.2: Summary of Content Analysis Findings
Number of
Recommendations
Neither
Large nor
Small
Larger
Smaller
Accepted
No
Decision
Accepted
and Completed
Rejected
Accep-ted,
Started, Accep-ted,
Not Yet
Not Yet
Finished
Started
Raw Data
Policy
235
199
31
5
98
115
22
43
44
11
Administration
309
190
93
26
274
29
6
164
79
31
Total
544
389
124
31
372
144
28
207
123
42
11.2
Percentage of Total (%)
Policy
43.2
84.7
13.2
2.1
41.7
48.9
9.4
43.9
44.9
Administration
56.8
61.5
30.1
8.4
88.7
9.4
1.9
59.9
28.8
11.3
Total
100
71.5
22.8
5.7
68.4
26.5
5.1
38.1
22.6
Source: Author's compilation.
Appendix 8.3: Breakdown of Recommendations—Raw Data
Accept-ed,
Started, Accept-ed,
Not yet
Not Yet
Finished
Started
Number of
Recommendations
Larger
Neither
Smaller
Accepted
No
Decision
Rejected
Accepted
and Completed
Income tax
62
50
12
0
22
30
10
12
8
2
Value-added tax
60
52
8
0
19
35
6
1
14
4
Policy
Customs
21
16
0
5
16
5
0
11
3
2
Revenue administration
60
52
8
0
24
33
3
8
13
3
Other
9
8
1
0
5
4
0
2
3
0
Exemptions
23
21
2
0
12
8
3
9
3
0
Tax
26
13
13
0
26
0
0
14
10
2
Value-added tax
7
5
2
0
3
4
0
2
1
0
Customs
45
37
3
5
42
3
0
13
14
15
Implementation
53
36
15
2
43
9
1
35
5
3
Administration general
75
33
28
14
67
4
4
43
18
6
Training
28
19
4
5
28
0
0
19
6
3
Systems
25
16
9
0
24
0
1
14
9
1
1
Administration
Communications
33
22
11
0
26
7
0
11
14
Self-assessment
5
4
1
0
4
1
0
2
2
0
Large taxpayers
12
5
7
0
11
1
0
11
0
0
Total
544
389
124
31
372
144
28
207
123
42
Source: Author's compilation.
Achieving Revenue Reform in the Pacific 189
Appendix 8.4: Breakdown of Recommendations—Percent (%)
Number of
Recommendations
Larger
Neither
Smaller
Accepted
No
Decision
Accept-ed
and Completed
Rejected
Accept-ed,
Started, Accept-ed,
Not Yet
Not Yet
Finished
Started
Policy
Income tax
11
81
19
0
35
48
16
55
36
9
Value-added tax
11
87
13
0
32
58
10
5
74
21
4
76
0
24
76
24
0
69
19
13
11
87
13
0
40
55
5
33
54
13
Other
2
89
11
0
56
44
0
40
60
0
Exemptions
4
91
9
0
52
35
13
75
25
0
8
Customs
Revenue administration
Administration
Tax
5
50
50
0
100
0
0
54
38
Value-added tax
1
71
29
0
43
57
0
67
33
0
Customs
8
82
7
11
93
7
0
31
33
36
Implementation
10
68
28
4
81
17
2
81
12
7
Administration general
14
44
37
19
89
5
5
64
27
9
Training
5
68
14
18
100
0
0
68
21
11
Systems
5
64
36
0
96
0
4
58
38
4
Communications
6
67
33
0
79
21
0
42
54
4
Self-assessment
1
80
20
0
80
20
0
50
50
0
Large taxpayers
2
42
58
0
92
8
0
100
0
0
100
71.5
22.8
5.7
68.4
26.5
5.1
38.1
22.6
7.7
Total
Source: Author's compilation.
9 Island Parties
How Has Political Instability Impacted on
Regulatory Quality in the South Pacific?
by Aaron Batten
ABSTRACT
The political instability created by weak party systems and fractionalized governments is often cited
as a key constraint facing the adoption of policy settings in the Pacific that are more conducive to
broad-based private sector development. This paper empirically analyzes whether these political
characteristics have impacted levels of regulatory quality in the Pacific islands. Using the system–
generalized method of moments (GMM) procedure, estimates are made from a dynamic panel of 13
Pacific island countries and 17 other small island developing states between 1996 and 2008. High
levels of political instability and party fractionalization are shown to have been key determinants of
the poor levels of regulatory quality across the region. This is argued to reflect the clientelist and
rent-seeking behaviors that weak party systems have encouraged and their consequent impact on the
ability, and desire, of Pacific island governments to battle vested interest groups. A number of policy
implications follow.
1. Introduction
Pacific island governments have struggled to create vibrant business environments capable of creating
sufficient formal sector employment levels to absorb their expanding populations. Although
experiences across the region have been diverse, formal sector economic activity has tended to remain
focused on either extractive industries for those with natural resources or low-value-added
agricultural production. These forms of development have had important implications for the
quantity and quality of employment available to Pacific islanders, with significant proportions of the
populations of almost all countries still living semi-subsistence lifestyles with few income-earning
opportunities.
Numerous reasons have been advanced to explain this situation, with many explanations
focused on the unique economic, institutional, and bureaucratic challenges faced by small island
developing states (SIDS)—a global grouping common to all of the Pacific islands. 1 Characterized by
1
For the purposes of this paper the Pacific islands are classified as the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, the
Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, Northern Marianas Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea,
Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Timor-Lesté, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. These countries are all members of the United Nations
Small Island Developing States network (Appendix 9.1).
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undiversified production capacity, SIDS are seen as vulnerable to external and domestic shocks.
Foreign trade is also frequently undermined by high transport costs, as SIDS are often in remote
locations, with generally poor infrastructure and limited scope for scale economies. Adding to these
effects is the high frequency of natural disasters such as cyclones, floods, and earthquakes (Briguglio
1995; Armstrong et al. 1998; Armstrong and Read 2002; McGillivray et al. 2008).
Compounding these economic challenges are the pressures that SIDS face in developing
well-functioning bureaucracies. Public sector managers are exposed to a much higher degree of
conflicting pressures arising from close interpersonal relations, limited promotion opportunities, and
senior officials having to act in multifunctional roles (Farrugia 1993). SIDS also face difficulties
recruiting high-quality civil servants due to the limited supply of candidates and the tendency of the
most capable individuals to seek employment in larger markets (Streeten 1993).
Another feature of Pacific SIDS that has gained increasing attention is the relatively high
levels of political instability experienced by many of these countries since they gained independence.
This instability has taken on many forms, but most often it has resulted from political structures that
are categorized by weak party systems and fragile government coalitions formed from a large number
of political parties. Political instability has also been attributed to the politicization of the public
service as governments use bureaucratic processes to solidify their political power and sideline their
opposition.
This instability has led to discontinuity of governments, with many failing before
completing their term in office. Government discontinuity and high levels of party fractionalization
while governments are in power has disrupted policy-making processes in the Pacific islands. It has
reduced the predictability of policy regimes and consequently the efficiency of fiscal administration.
Perhaps the most important consequence of political instability is the adverse impact it has had on
both the ability and the desire of Pacific island governments to battle vested interest groups and
pursue productive economic reforms.
Weak political parties can reduce the incentives for politicians to undertake coherent, longterm policy decisions and encourage policy making that is directed at specific interest groups or
political constituencies. Fragile ruling coalitions can also mean that reform efforts are highly
destabilizing for incumbent governments, particularly if they are attempting to overcome politically
influential vested interest groups. Weaker public sectors are also less capable of effectively
implementing those reforms that are undertaken.
This raises the important question of whether the region’s political systems have been a key
constraint on more effective policy decision making. In particular, have fractionalized political
systems reduced the effectiveness of Pacific island governments in creating vibrant employmentgenerating business environments? This paper empirically examines these questions by focusing on
the impact of political instability on the quality of domestic business regulation, both in the Pacific
islands and SIDS in general. Policy implications are drawn from the findings.
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193
2. Background
The Origins of Pacific Island Countries
The process of establishing national boundaries within the Pacific islands was dominated by colonial
powers who, for their own interests and convenience, combined numerous and previously largely
autonomous communities into single national identities (Crocombe 2001). Western forms of
government were transplanted into these new countries along with national constitutions and
parliamentary systems largely following those of the administering European power. 2 Most countries
obtained their independence during the 1960s and 1970s, following a broader global trend by
colonial powers. 3
Despite somewhat ambiguous beginnings, the Pacific islands have been unusually successful
in establishing competitive and participatory democracy. Regular, freely contested, and highly
competitive national and local elections have been held across the region. With the exception of
Samoa and Tonga, where traditional chiefs still maintain constitutionally mandated positions within
the executive, participation in politics has remained for the most part unrestricted. There have also
been relatively few instances where unconstitutional or violent means have been used, or threatened,
to enforce changes of government. 4 As Reilly (2000, p. 261) highlights, the United States’ (US)
private foundation Freedom House places the entire Pacific islands region in the “free” category (bar
the “partly free” Fiji) on its index of political and civil liberties—a distinction shared with only one
other region in the world, Western Europe.
While the success of these democracies in overcoming the unique challenges facing SIDS
has varied, the overall economic performance of the Pacific islands has been poor. Countries such as
Nauru, Papua New Guinea (PNG), and Solomon Islands have recorded long-term declines in per
capita incomes since they gained independence. These countries have also made limited progress on
social indicators. PNG and Solomon Islands have infant mortality rates more than twice as high as
other countries in the region at 55 deaths per 1,000 births (World Bank 2008). 5 More progress has
been made in countries such as Fiji and Vanuatu, which have, for example, reduced levels of infant
mortality well below the lower- to middle-income country average of 40 deaths per 1,000, with rates
of 29 in Fiji and 15 in Vanuatu (World Bank 2008). However, slow and volatile growth rates since
1980 have meant per capita income levels have increased only by an average 0.5% per year in Fiji
2
3
4
5
For example, countries administered by Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom favored the Westminster system,
while the US-controlled territories of the Marshall Islands, the FSM, and Palau adopted variations of the presidential system.
Samoa was the first to obtain its independence in 1962, albeit with Niue voting to separate from the island and become an
overseas territory of New Zealand. The Cook Islands pioneered the concept of “associated statehood,” forming an agreement
with New Zealand in 1965 (Lemon 2001, p. 39). Nauru obtained full independence in 1968, while Fiji and Tonga obtained
theirs in 1970 (although, by maintaining a monarchy, Tonga had already been largely independent from British colonial rule).
Niue followed the Cook Islands example and formed associated statehood with New Zealand in 1974. PNG gained full
independence from Australia in 1975, while Solomon Islands and Tuvalu obtained theirs in 1978. Independence in Kiribati
was gained soon after in 1979 and then by Vanuatu in 1980. The US-administered territories gained independence later than
the rest of the Pacific islands, with the Marshall Islands and the FSM receiving theirs in 1990, and Palau in 1994; although
these states still share a common association with the US.
The most obvious exceptions to this being the 1987, 2000, and 2006 coups in Fiji; the threat of a PNG coup leading to the fall
of the Chan government during the Sandline crisis in 1997; the civil conflict in Solomon Islands culminating in 2001; and
more recently, the military threats to the Timor-Leste government in 2008–2009.
PNG also has the worst educational statistics in the region with a 56% gross enrolment rate for primary education in 2006
(World Bank 2008).
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
and 0.4% Vanuatu. Even the relatively successful Polynesian states of Samoa and Tonga 6 are still
heavily reliant on remittance and aid income and face significant economic and social challenges, as
highlighted by the 2006 riots in Tonga’s capital, Nuku’alofa (Batten 2009).
It is unsurprising then that the Pacific islands region has made slow progress toward
achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) espoused in the 2000 United Nations (UN)
Millennium Declaration (UN 2000), 7 particularly in the areas of health and HIV/AIDS, water and
sanitation, and education. Indeed, according to the 2008 UN MDG monitoring report, “of the five
sub-regions of Asia–Pacific the success of Pacific Island developing countries in implementing the
MDGs has been the least impressive” (UN 2008, p. 12).
So why have the region’s relatively robust democracies not achieved the gains in economic
prosperity that may be expected from representative political systems?
This paper examines one possible cause: that the region’s political characteristics have
adversely impacted the ability, and desire, of Pacific island governments to formulate and implement
sound policies and regulations that promote private sector development.
Political Systems in the Pacific Islands
While the process of independence brought once disparate peoples under single, autonomously
governed national banners, the notion of national identity has been largely restricted to small groups
of urban-based elite. The majority of people have continued to think of themselves primarily as
members of their village, clans (wantoks), or, at its broadest level, their islands (Rich 2008, p. 22).
This dominance of local over national identity, combined with strong cultural and personal
affiliations, has contributed to the continued influence of local leaders or “big men” in the
administration of local townships and villages. It has also contributed to voting patterns being
heavily influenced by ethnic or clan ties rather than on the basis of economic policy or ideology.
Political parties in the region have reflected these types of personal affiliations and have
rarely been formed around any ideological foundation. Rather, the formation of political parties has
relied on politicians binding together through mutual interest in their pursuit of gaining public
office. 8 In this sense, political parties have been as much a matter of convenience as they have been
about achieving any specific social or economic goals for their respective countries. As Duncan and
Nakagawa (2006, p. 5) explain,
[t]he strong local community demands and the lack of ideological positions with
respect to political activity, and the resulting lack of ideologically based political
parties, result in a high level of “individual flexibility” with regards to political
allegiance…
The lack of strong ideological party systems has thus had some important consequences for
the policy-making process in the Pacific islands. In particular, political parties have tended to play
6
7
8
Both these countries have, for example, almost 100% primary school enrolment and have more than halved their infant
mortality rates over the past 2 decades to approximately 20 deaths per 1,000 births by 2006.
The eight MDGs break down into 21 quantifiable targets that are measured by 60 indicators. These goals are (i) eradicate
extreme poverty and hunger; (ii) achieve universal primary education; (iii) promote gender equality and empower women;
(iv) reduce child mortality; (v) improve maternal health; (vi) combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases; (vii) ensure
environmental sustainability; and (viii) develop a global partnership for development.
Perhaps the best example of these loose political coalitions in a Melanesian context was the 1990 decision by Solomon Islands
Prime Minister Solomon Mamaloni to switch parties and form a coalition with opposition members of Parliament following an
open revolt against his leadership (Fraenkel et al. 2007, p. 4).
Island Parties
195
only a minor role in political debate, with limited levels of party loyalty among elected members of
government and with few parliamentarians being compelled to vote along party lines (Morgan,
Baker, and Hambly 2005). It has also been commonplace for candidates to run as independents and
join political parties after determining who will form government, and even for political parties to
have members both in government and in opposition (Chand and Duncan 2007, p. 8).
With a lack of ideological mandates and the allure of enhanced political positions and other
benefits, members of ruling government coalitions are often easily drawn to siding with the
opposition in parliamentary votes (Fraenkel et al. 2007, p. 5). This behavior has contributed to a
high degree of instability among the membership of political parties and even more so within
coalition governments. Votes of “no confidence” have been one of the most common methods of
obtaining early turnover of governments by opposition parties. PNG is a leading example of this,
with the electoral term between 2002 and 2007 being the first time a government has served its full
5-year term in office since independence. 9 Indeed, there have been more changes of government on
the floor of Parliament in PNG than at elections. Similarly, Solomon Islands has recorded 25
motions of no confidence in its prime ministers since independence (Haywood-Jones 2008).
Under these circumstances, Pacific island governments have become particularly susceptible
to patronage politics. This has occurred both through the provision of inducements to other
members of Parliament to build political loyalty and political support, as well as via the
implementation of policy settings that are favorable to existing private enterprises that supported the
government’s election efforts. A lack of party discipline has also encouraged parliamentarians to
pursue policies focused on delivering benefits to themselves and their direct constituents. As Chand
and Duncan (2007) highlight, by enforcing block-voting patterns and offering the benefits of
membership, strong political parties help to ensure members act to preserve the value of the “party
brand” by providing broader social goods and reducing (but by no means removing) the tendency to
deliver benefits to specific constituents. In contrast, individual members focusing on their own
special interests contribute to a broader lack of coherence across government policy making (Reilly
2000, p. 264).
Another consequence of fragile government coalitions is that to avoid votes of no
confidence, governments have often delayed or minimized parliamentary sitting times. When
parliaments do convene, sessions are commonly dominated by political jostling to obtain, or
maintain, majorities. As a result, the consideration of new legislation and reviews of existing
legislation and regulations have suffered.
High levels of patronage politics have also been associated with a more widespread
predatory rent-seeking model of governance within the region. This has contributed to politicians’
tendency to make policy decisions that are more conducive to bringing benefits to individual
constituents within a short time frame than on policies that deliver public goods that have diffuse
benefits over the long term. 10
Not all Pacific island countries (PICs) have experienced the same degree of political
instability and party fractionalization since gaining independence; for many, domestic political
9
10
Although often cited as a positive development in PNG politics—and attributed by some to the enhanced party structures
formed under the Organic Law on Political Parties and Candidates (OLIPPAC) reforms in 2001—this claim of political
stability is somewhat misleading in the PNG context, given that it has really only been the Prime Minister who has survived the
full term in office, with the bulk of government ministers changing during the electoral term (Fraenkel et al. 2007, p. 5).
Exacerbating this situation has been the often short time frames within which highly fragmented governments are able to hold
on to power—with members of government having to repay their constituents quickly; or in the case that they are removed, not
at all.
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
reforms, external and domestic economic conditions, and evolving democratic processes have led to
significant changes. 11 One method of measuring the impact of these trends on levels of political
stability in the region is through the political stability index developed by Kauffmann et al. (2009).
This index measures perceptions of the likelihood that the government will be destabilized either by
external forces or from within, including through politically motivated violence and terrorism. While
not directly related to the degree of government fractionalization, this index gives a preliminary
insight into how the region’s various political systems have been able to establish a sense of political
stability within each country. The data shown in Figure 9.1 for the Pacific islands—as well as a
number of other SIDS—measures the current level of political stability in each country against
recent changes in each country’s index between 2003 and 2008. The index ranges from –2.5 (poor)
to 2.5 (good). 12
The region’s microstates have the best perceptions regarding the stability of their political
systems, with the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Nauru, Palau, and
Tuvalu all perceived to be at relatively low risk of major, politically driven unrest. Samoa is also in
this upper group of countries, although its position has been falling in recent years. Solomon Islands
and Tonga rank slightly lower in the index, following a small increase in Solomon Islands’ ranking
since 2003 13 and a large decline in Tonga’s following the Nuku’alofa riots in November 2006. Fiji
has also experienced a large decline in its political stability index over the past 5 years, particularly
after the successful military coup by Commodore Bainimarama in 2006.
11
12
13
See Fraenkel and Grofman (2005) for a discussion of the various types of political and electoral systems that exist within the
Pacific islands.
The political stability and the perceptions of regulatory quality variables are discussed in more detail in section 5.
This follows a much larger increase since the cessation of ethnic conflict following the commencement of the Regional
Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) in 2001.
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197
Figure 9.1: Perceptions of Political Stability in Pacific Islands and
Small Island Developing States (2003–2008)
FS
.5
Vanuatu
PNG
Tuvalu
N. Cal
Kiribati
Solomon Is.
Marshall Is.
Change in Political Stability 2003–08
0
Palau
Nauru
Samoa
Fiji
-0.5
Tonga
Timor-Leste
-1
-2
-1
0
Political Stability 2008
1
2
FSM = Federated States of Micronesia, Is. = Islands, N. Cal = New Caledonia, PNG = Papua New Guinea.
Sources: World Bank (2009) and author’s calculations.
New Caledonia and PNG remain in the negative half of the index distribution, despite both
having made small improvements over recent years. For PNG, this small improvement is no doubt
due to the continuation of favorable external economic conditions and the successful completion of a
full electoral term between 2002 and 2007 by Prime Minister Somare (the first since independence)
and his subsequent reelection.
Vanuatu is currently regarded as the Melanesian state least likely to suffer from serious
political instability and now has a similar index value as the relatively stable microstates of Kiribati,
the FSM, Palau, and Tuvalu. Easily the worst performer among the group of PICs is Timor-Leste.
Following the significant optimism at the time of its independence in 2002, it has fallen considerably
over the past 5 years—in particular, following recent threats against the government by its military
and a presidential assassination attempt in 2008.
How, then, have these types of changes in political stability impacted the ability of Pacific
island governments to create business and investment environments conducive to widespread wealth
and employment creation?
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Political Instability and Regulation in the Pacific Islands
An effective regulatory state implies that, in the presence of competitive markets, production
decisions are left to the private sector; and where significant market failures exist, sufficient
regulatory structures are in place to ensure a welfare-maximizing outcome (World Bank 2001).
Effective market regulation is thus a broad social public good. Improvements to the regulatory
environment, such as removing impediments to new entrants to a market, lowering trade barriers, or
reducing subsidies to state-owned enterprises, all have the potential to bring wide-scale benefits to an
economy. Indeed, an effective regulatory regime has increasingly been shown to be a key factor in
determining long-term rates of economic growth across the developing world (World Bank 2004;
Jalilian et al. 2007). However, the benefits of regulatory reform tend to be highly diffused across
stakeholders: consumers benefit from lower prices and new and improved products and services, new
firms and their employees take advantage of emerging market opportunities, and existing firms
expand. In contrast, the costs of regulatory reform tend to fall overwhelming on the narrow group of
existing business enterprises that are benefiting from the status quo.
The political characteristics of the Pacific islands create significant challenges to the creation
of more effective regulatory regimes. For governments that are struggling to maintain weak
coalitions, the potential for overcoming highly motivated vested interest groups is low. Attempts to
remove the rent-seeking opportunities of existing businesses could easily destabilize a government as
lobbyists seek out means to protect their rents. This can lead to the entrenchment of business and
regulatory models that favor incumbent producers at the expense of new, more efficient enterprises.
As discussed, weak party systems are also likely to offer politicians little incentive to consider
the broader public good, but rather to focus their efforts on delivering benefits to those constituents
who will be responsible for their reelection or for keeping them in power. In addition, developing the
types of regulatory institutions required for a vibrant, secure, business environment—encouraging
new entrants, promoting corporate and public accountability, and protecting private property
rights—has the potential to undermine the rent-seeking opportunities of both politicians and existing
businesses. This again creates a strong incentive for incumbent politicians to maintain the status quo.
It is perhaps no surprise that the Pacific islands have consistently underperformed in terms
of the quality of domestic regulation they been able to establish. This record is illustrated in Figure
9.2, which shows perceptions of regulatory quality indexes (developed by Kauffmann et al. 2009) for
PICs and other SIDS. The index ranges from –2.5 (poor) to 2.5 (good), with the figure showing the
current level of regulatory quality in each country against changes in each country’s index between
2003 and 2008.
It can be seen that in 2008 all PICs, except the Cook Islands, scored within the negative
half of the index—indicating below-average perceptions of their regulatory environments. Another
significant trend is the deteriorating perception of regulatory quality in the Pacific islands, with a
majority of countries (10 out of 15) recording a decline in their index values over the past 5 years.
Timor-Leste is the worst performer. The only country in the positive half of the index is the Cook
Islands—although New Caledonia is near zero. Solomon Islands has recorded the biggest gains in its
regulatory quality index over the past 5 years, albeit coming from a very low base following the
ethnic conflict and still ranking among the bottom PICs.
The remainder of the chapter examines the extent to which the region’s political systems
have affected these poor and declining regulatory standards in the Pacific islands.
Island Parties
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Figure 9.2: Perceptions of Regulatory Quality in Pacific Islands and
Small Island Developing States (2003–2008)
Change in Regulatory Quality 2003–08
2
Solomon Is.
1
Vanuatu
Tonga
PNG
0
Timor-Leste
FSM
Marshall Is.
Nauru
Fiji
Kiribati
Samoa
Palau
Cook Is.
N. Cal
-1
Tuvalu
-2
-3
-2
-1
0
1
Regulatory Quality 2008
FSM = Federated States of Micronesia, Is. = Islands, N. Cal = New Caledonia, PNG = Papua New Guinea.
Sources: World Bank (2009) and author’s calculations.
3. Literature Review
There is rich and varied literature analyzing the impact of political stability on economic
performance. Alesina et al. (1992) found that for a sample of 113 countries between 1950 and 1982,
rates of economic growth were significantly lower in countries with a higher propensity for
government collapse. They also found that political instability leads to lower growth, but there was
no evidence that lower rates of economic growth affect the probability of a change of government—
although latter result was challenged by Blomberg and Hess (2002), who argued that poor economic
performance increases the probability of domestic conflict.
In his seminal paper on the determinants of economic growth, Barro (1991) found that for
a cross section of 98 countries between 1960 and 1985, a variety of measures of political unrest,
including the number of political assassinations, violent revolutions, and military coups, all had a
significant impact by lowering average rates of economic growth.
Other studies have focused attention on the impact of political instability on government
policy choices and, in particular, on their ability to maintain expenditure control in light of the
numerous competing special interest groups. For example, Cukierman et al. (1992) found that
political instability has a significant effect on levels of inflation, although these authors do not
address the problem of the endogeneity between their measures of political instability and rates of
economic growth. However, this effect is supported by the results of Roubini and Sachs (1989) who
found that fractionalized governments (i.e., those formed from coalitions of minority parties) tend to
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
incur higher budget deficits. This, they argue, arises from the greater need for these types of
governments to engage in collective pork barrel spending to maintain fragile party coalitions.
This result was extended by Berument and Heckelman (2005) who found that for a sample
of 10 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries between
1975–1997 and 1975–2003, fractionalized governments tended to collect more seigniorage revenue
than those less fractionalized—again as a basis for funding a more diverse range of prioritized
expenditures. Alesina and Perotti (1996) examined the mechanisms through which political
instability can affect economic performance by devising an index that measures the occurrence of
more violent phenomena related to political unrest. The authors show that for a sample of 71
countries between 1960 and 1985, income inequality, by fueling social discontent, increases
sociopolitical instability. The resulting uncertainty reduces levels of domestic investment, which
negatively affects income growth.
A common feature of the literature assessing the impact of political instability on economic
performance literature has been its focus on measuring political instability via indicators which
record transfers of power between Government and opposition. As discussed, for most Pacific island
states violent revolutions and military coups have tended to be the exception rather than the norm
within the political landscape and for changes of political power. Rather, despite high levels of
fractionalization within government, transfers of power within the Pacific islands have occurred
predominantly through highly contested elections and other constitutional means such as votes of no
confidence and formal dissolutions of parliament.
What has been more important to the policy-making environment in the Pacific islands
than violent overthrows of government are the characteristics of government coalitions while they
have remained in power. Therefore, rather than measuring changes of government through either
military or civil coups, this paper focuses on the assessment of less dramatic forms of political
instability that, while not necessarily being sufficient to cause a change of government, may lead to
sufficient incentives for an incumbent government to be unable, or unwilling, to pursue helpful
economic reforms. As discussed below, these include variables such as the parliamentary majority
enjoyed by the ruling coalition and a number of indicators of party fractionalization.
This study makes a number of contributions to the literature. It is the first study to test the
impact political fractionalization has had on the ability of Pacific island governments to establish
private sector environments conducive to widespread wealth creation. It also draws on new measures
of government fractionalization that more accurately reflect the types and causes of political
instability faced by Pacific island governments. These include a perceptions-based index of aggregate
political stability; the construction of a “Herfindahl” index of government power, a measure of
government fractionalization based on the probability that two deputy ministers are from the same
party; and a measure of the proportion of seats held by the coalition government relative to the
opposition. The paper also reports a data collection exercise that generated an unbalanced dynamic
panel of 13 PICs and 30 SIDS. This data is statistically analyzed using the system–generalized
method of moments (GMM) and robust system–GMM estimation procedures to account for
potential endogeneity among the explanatory variables.
4. Model and Estimation Method
As used in a wide variety of studies analyzing the cross-country determinants of institutional
performance, the basic model to be estimated can be represented by
Island Parties
RQi ,t
E 0 E1 PSi ,t E c=c J t Ki H i ,t
where RQi ,t represents the level of regulatory quality for country i at time t,
201
(0.1)
PSi ,t
represents the
level of political stability for country i at time t, =c represents a vector of other control variables that
influence the level of regulatory quality,
K
J t is unexplained variation that remains constant across
H i ,t
is
countries but varies across time, i are country-specific and time-constant (fixed) effects, and
the usual white noise error with zero expected mean. A key issue when estimating models of
economic performance and political stability is that the core explanatory variable of interest—
political stability—is potentially endogenous with the dependant variable. For example, while
political stability may have a positive impact on economic reform, it is also probable that economic
reform may lead to stronger rates of gross domestic product (GDP) growth, which in turn may
strengthen the government’s political position. As discussed shortly, the same can be said for other
explanatory variables included in the model, such as GDP growth and the amount of overseas
development assistance (ODA) received from donors—with positive reform outcomes likely to
stimulate higher levels of donor loans. Controlling for this endogeneity is thus a key issue in the
estimation of the specification in Equation 1.1.
Another important question to consider is how levels of political stability have influenced
rates of regulatory reform vis-à-vis levels of regulatory quality. In this instance, an alternative
specification to Equation 1.1 can be written as
(0.2)
'RQi ,t E 0 E1 RQi ,t 1 E 2 PSi ,t E c=c J t Ki H i ,t
where 'RQi ,t is the change in regulatory quality between periods. This specification also includes
the lagged level value of regulatory quality to control for the possibility that countries with higher
levels of regulatory quality may find it easier to undertake reforms, given that they have greater
institutional capacity to manage the change, or that those countries starting from a poor regulatory
base may find it easier to make initial improvements.
Given that Equations 1.1 and 1.2 are estimated with a dynamic panel dataset, it is also
important to control for country-specific effects (fixed effects). In the presence of country-specific
effects, ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates may be both biased and inconsistent since the lagged
value of regulatory quality will be correlated with the error term. 14 The first-differenced GMM
estimator developed by Arellano and Bond (1991) is one method to control for these issues. 15 In the
case of Equation 1.1, 16 for example, the dependent regulatory quality variable is estimated in first
differences ( X i ,t X i ,t 1 ) such that
'RQi ,t
14
15
16
E 0 E1'PSi ,t 1 E c'=c 'J t H i ,t
(0.3)
In addition, it has been shown that this correlation cannot be removed as the number of countries in the sample increases as the
time period of estimation increases (Coviello and Islam 2006, p. 22).
While a simple fixed-effects panel data approach to estimating Equation 1.1 would account for the existence of country-specific
effects, the coefficient estimates will remain biased because of the presence of endogeneity. In addition, the fixed-effects
estimator would remove a number of control variables, which, as discussed below, are also of interest as they are time invariant;
hence the focus on the system–GMM estimation procedure.
However, the estimation of Equation 1.2 is carried out in much the same way; given that the dependent variable is already in
differences it will be estimated in second differences. As in the estimations of Equation 1.1, all of the explanatory variables are
estimated in first differences.
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
where the country-specific effects, Ki , are canceled out by the difference operator. Difference-GMM
also controls for the endogeneity of the regulatory quality and political instability variables by using
internal instruments that are based on the lagged values of the endogenous explanatory variables
(Coviello and Islam 2006, p. 23). For consistent estimation, it is also required that H i ,t have the
typical i.i.d properties in addition to each of the explanatory variable satisfying the assumption of
weak exogeneity. Weak exogeneity requires that variables must be uncorrelated with future
unanticipated shocks to the dependent variable but could be influenced by both past and present
levels of the dependant variables—which means that they are uncorrelated with H i ,t such that
E[ RQi ,t s (H i ,t H i ,t s )] 0
E[ =ci ,t s (H i ,t H i ,t s )] 0
t
3,..., T ; s t 2
(0.4)
where T is the number of time periods in the sample and =c represents the vector of all the weakly
exogenous explanatory variables. Bond et al. (2001) show that when estimating persistent time series
(such as measures of regulatory quality), the first-differenced GMM estimator can be unreliable since
lagged levels of the series provide only weak instruments for subsequent first differences. 17 A solution
to this problem is provided by Arellano and Bover (1995) and Blundell and Bond (1997), who
developed the system–GMM estimator. The system–GMM approach also uses lagged values of the
dependent and independent variables as internal instruments but these are derived from the
estimation of a system of two simultaneous equations. The first is in levels with lagged first
differences as instruments and the second is in first differences with lagged levels as instruments. By
using this approach, this paper addresses the issue of weak instrumentation, which can occur as a
result of using first-differenced GMM estimations when estimating highly persistent time series
(Elbadawi et al. 2007, p. 15).
However, the system–GMM procedure requires a number of additional conditions. Firstly,
it requires both of the original orthogonality assumptions of the first-differenced GMM estimator
(shown in Equation 1.4). It also requires that the equation in differences has no correlation between
the differences of the variables and the country-specific effects 18 such that
E[( RQi ,t N RQi ,t q )Ki ] 0
E[( =ci ,t N =ci ,t q )Ki ] 0
N,q
(0.5)
For the equation in levels, two additional moment conditions are also required to ensure
that the internal instruments gain a sufficient degree of identification with the dependent regulatory
quality variable given its persistent nature, such that
E[( RQi ,t s RQi ,t s 1 )(Ki H i ,t )] 0
E[( =ci ,t s =ci ,t s 1 )(Ki H i ,t )] 0
(0.6)
One downside of using the system–GMM procedure is that while the estimators are
asymptotically robust, they are known to have poor finite sample properties, leading to a downwards
bias in the standard error estimates (Roodman 2006, p. 1). This issue is addressed by using the finite
sample correction proposed by Windmeijer (2005), which produces standard errors that are
asymptotically robust to both heteroskedasticity and serial correlation.
17
18
In particular, when the dependent variable follows a path close to a random walk, the differenced–GMM has poor finite sample
properties and is downwards biased, especially when the number of periods is small (Presbitero 2006, p. 6).
This implies that the system is stationary and that temporary deviations from the steady state value are uncorrelated with the
fixed effects (Djankov et al. 2008, p. 184).
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203
As outlined in Blundel and Bond (1998), the Hansen–Sargan test of overidentifying
restrictions is reported in all of the GMM estimations for the null hypothesis of instrument validity.
Failure to reject the null hypothesis gives support to the model. 19
The estimation process also requires the selection of an appropriate lag structure for
estimating each of the endogenous explanatory variables. Given the limited sample size that the
Pacific islands offers and the need to minimize the number of instruments generated in proportion to
the number of country clusters (Roodman 2006), all of the estimations are carried out with a 2-year
single lag structure. The use of only a single second-year lag minimizes the number of instruments
required, given the small sample size. The second-year lag is chosen as it is the first lag that is not
correlated with the current period error term since
'ei ,t
ei ,t ei ,t 1
and
'ei ,t 1
ei ,t 1 ei ,t 2
e
and, hence, the residuals between the current period and the first lag both contain i ,t 1 . The
Arellano–Bond test statistic is used to examine the null hypothesis that the error term is not serially
correlated. The values reported are the p-values for first-order autoregressive (AR)(1) and secondorder AR(2) autocorrelated disturbances in the first-differenced equations. 20 It is common for the
AR(1) test in first differences to reject the null hypothesis of no autocorrelation, but this is to be
e
expected since both residuals contain i ,t 1 . Of most significance are the AR(2) residuals, which
detect the presence of autocorrelation in levels.
5. Data
Dependent Variable
The dependant variable for this paper to measure regulatory quality draws on the Governance
Matters dataset constructed by Kauffmann et al. (2009). This variable is defined as “perceptions of
the ability of the government to formulate and implement sound policies and regulations that permit
and promote private sector development.” It is the most comprehensive perceptions-based indicator
of regulatory performance available, covering 212 countries from 1996 to 2008. The dataset also
includes a large number of SIDS, which are typically excluded from governance indicator datasets,
including 14 PICs. This indicator is measured in units ranging from –2.5 to 2.5, with higher values
corresponding to better perceptions surrounding the prevailing regulatory environment. Unrecorded
values for 1997, 1999, and 2001 were linearly extrapolated from adjoining years.
Explanatory Variables
The paper uses three indicators of political instability as the core explanatory variable in the model.
The first also draws on the Kauffmann et al. (2009) dataset and, as before, measures perceptions of
the likelihood that the government will be destabilized either by external forces or from within
government, including politically motivated violence and terrorism. This variable has the advantage
that it is available for a large number of SIDS including 13 PICs for the period 1996 to 2008.
However, it focuses primarily on perceptions of the threat of changes in government through violent
or non-political means. To capture the degree to which fractionalized party politics has contributed
19
20
For each of the robust system–GMM estimations, Hansen’s J-Statistic is presented instead of the Sargan Statistic. Both tests
have the same null hypothesis.
A failure to reject the null hypothesis gives support to the model. Rejecting the null hypothesis indicates a need for higher-order
lags of the variables to be used as instruments.
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
to political instability and regulatory outcomes, other measures were developed using the Beck et al.
(2001) and Keefer (2007) political institutions database.
The first indicator measures the extent to which the incumbent government possesses a
parliamentary majority by counting the number of seats it holds within Parliament relative to the
total number of seats available. The assumption here is that governments with a smaller proportion
of seats will be less inclined to undertake reform efforts that disadvantage a party member due to the
threat that their defection may have to maintenance of a parliamentary majority. A stronger
government coalition may be more inclined to challenge vested interests as their defection would be
less likely to threaten the government’s hold on power.
The second indicator measures the number of legislative parties required to form a coalition
:
government as the basis for constructing a political Herfindahl index. This variable ( t ) is defined
as the sum of squared seats of all parties included in the government coalition, such that
:t
5
¦s
p 1
2
p ,t
sp
is the share of seats held by party p in the government at time t, and P is the total number
where
of parties in government. This variable measures the concentration of power within government,
based on the number of parties required to form the coalition and the proportion of seats held by
each party. Higher values of the index indicate less fractionalization (higher concentration of power
within a single party).
The final measure of government fractionalization measures the probability that any two
deputies picked at random from among the parties that comprise government will be from two
different parties. This variable is defined as
*t
5
1 ¦ Zi2,t
i 1
where Zi ,t is the share of group i in the government coalition at time t. In contrast to the political
Herfindahl index, this index focuses on the amount of political influence that each of the coalition
parties has been able to obtain by measuring the probability that two random draws from among
government would produce legislators from different parties. When *t 0 there is no
fractionalization of parties within government. This is likely to represent a relative cohesion of
political opinion. In contrast, as * t approaches 1, there is an increasing probability that each
member of government will come from different parties. Such a legislature is assumed to be more
likely to be divided, with a lower degree of policy coherence. The variable provides an alternative
proxy for the level of political fractionalization.
The downside of using these different measures of government fractionalization is that they
are only available for five PICs between 1989 and 2006, giving a relatively small sample size.
Therefore, the estimations carried out using these measures were also conducted using all SIDS
available in the sample, of which there are 17.
Other Explanatory Variables
The large and varied literature on the determinants of economic reform offers several other
important control variables that should be included in the model. These can be broadly classified
into the economic, institutional, and historical determinants of regulatory quality.
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205
The first such variable is a measure of GDP growth to reflect the impact that prevailing
economic conditions can have on a government’s ability, and desire, to undertake economic reform.
On the one hand, higher rates of GDP growth may help promote improvements in regulatory
quality, as they provide governments with the resources and the stability to handle any adjustment
costs that may arise from reforms. On the other hand, it has been common for Pacific island
governments to undertake economic reforms following significant economic turmoil, generally as a
means to reestablish some form of macroeconomic stability. Nominal and real GDP growth rates
were interchanged in earlier estimations, with the nominal variable recording a higher, more
consistent level of significance across each of the estimations—perhaps reflecting the closer
relationship nominal GDP growth has with government revenue streams. Therefore, nominal GDP
was used in the final estimations. Using this variable also captures the effects of shocks, both to
output and to price levels, saving on degrees of freedom.
Data was sourced from the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) International Financial
Statistics online database and was measured in terms of percent per annum (IMF 2009). This data
was augmented with data from the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Key Indicators for Asia and the
Pacific (ADB 2009) for some of the Pacific islands countries, with aggregate GDP converted from
local currency units into US dollars using period average exchange rates from the same source.
Another important control variable included in the estimations is the level of foreign aid
received by each country. This ODA variable was sourced from the OECD Development Assistance
Committee’s (DAC) database (OECD DAC 2009). The data was originally measured in nominal
US dollars and then taken as a proportion of GDP using the data listed above. Although often
targeted at improving institutional outcomes, foreign aid is a heterogeneous good—with different
donors targeting different outcomes across a variety of sectors of the economy. For this reason, and
to capture those elements of foreign aid most likely to influence levels of regulatory quality, this
variable was also disaggregated into two components—technical cooperation ODA and net donor
loans. Technical cooperation is defined as “assistance activities designed to improve the level of
knowledge, skills, technical know-how, or productive aptitudes of a population in a developing
country” (OECD DAC 2007). Net donor loans are defined as the disbursement of new concessional
loans to recipient countries less the total amount of repayments made by that recipient to previous
creditors (OECD DAC 2007). Both of these aid variables were also measured as a percentage of
GDP.
Levels of adult literacy were included in the estimations to capture the influence that a
better-educated electorate can have on the demand for economic reform that has public good
characteristics. This data was taken from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators dataset
(2009) and augmented for a number of PICs using the regional Pacific Regional Information System
(PRISM) data source as well as the CIA country fact pages for a number of the US-aligned Pacific
states. 21
Population levels were included to capture the disadvantage that smaller countries are likely
to face by having fewer institutional and human capital resources. As explained, smaller states also
face unique challenges within their bureaucracies that could influence their ability to create wellfunctioning regulatory institutions. These include the close interpersonal relationships that members
of the bureaucracy often have with business interests. This variable was measured as the natural
21
Another economic variable included in earlier estimations was GDP per capita. However, this variable was not found to be
significant—most likely the result of its very high correlation with literacy levels, with an average correlation of 0.91 within the
sample. Therefore, to save on degrees of freedom the GDP per capita variable was excluded from the final estimations.
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
logarithm of thousands of people and taken from the World Development Indicators dataset (2009).
This data was augmented with data for several PICs using the ADB Key Indicators (2009).
Estimations also controlled for the influence of a country’s structural geographic
characteristics on institutional quality. These include variables such as distance from the equator and
the proportion of the population within 100 kilometers (km) of major waterways. Distance from the
equator was measured as the absolute value of latitude in degrees from the equator. This variable
measures the structural disadvantages faced by countries due to climatic conditions—with those
countries closer to the equator more likely to face a higher burden from tropical diseases and adverse
weather events such as cyclones. These factors have been shown in a number of seminal papers to
have been a key determinant of more general levels of institutional quality (Sachs 2003; Rodrik et al.
2004). This data was sourced from Rodrik et al. (2004) and updated for several PICs (Appendix
9.2).
Geographic proximity to major waterways measures the proportion of a country’s
population within 100 km of ice-free coast lines or sea-navigable rivers. This variable captures the
impact that easily obtainable access to international markets can have on a country’s trade policy and
regulations, such as its degree of openness—with those countries with a high proportion of its
population in areas that are likely to benefit from international trade more likely to adopt more
trade-conducive economic policies. This data was taken from Gallup et al. (1999) and updated for
PICs (Appendix 9.2).
A dummy variable measuring whether a country is classified as a “fragile state” was also
included in some estimations to control for any differential effects in those countries either in a postconflict situation or that have very low levels of institutional quality. The fragile states dummy was
sourced from Chauvet and Collier (2007) and calculated from the World Bank’s definition of fragile
states, which includes low-income countries scoring 3.2 and below on the World Bank’s Country
Policy and Institutional Assessment index. A full list of those SIDS assessed as “fragile” can be found
in Appendix 9.2.
The final set of control variables captures the influence of colonial legacy on levels of
regulatory quality. In many of the Pacific islands, these historical relationships were strongly
influenced by a British colonial legacy. Whether the influence of Britain and the transplantation of
its models of governance have helped or hindered the Pacific islands in creating domestic regulatory
environments conducive to broad-based employment creation is an open question. To control for
this, a dummy variable measuring whether country j is an ex-British colony or protectorate was
included. A full list of the countries is provided in Appendix 9.3.
Other European powers (France, Germany, and Portugal) have also had a significant
influence on some PICs as well as on other SIDS. Therefore, a second colonial legacy variable was
included to measure the fraction of the population that speaks a European language, including
English, to measure the depth of these historical colonial relationships. This linguistic variable was
taken from Hall and Jones (1999) and extended to several PICs as described in Appendix 9.2.
Table 9.1 presents the key summary statistics for each of these variables. Within the sample
of 30 SIDS, there are 13 PICs, 20 ex-British colonies or protectorates, and 4 countries that have
been classified at some stage as a fragile state. The highest-ranking country in terms of regulatory
quality was the Bahamas in 2002 with a score of 1.3, while Solomon Islands scored the lowest in
2003. The greatest perception of political stability was in St. Kitts and Nevis in 2004 with an index
value of 1.48 and Haiti the worst in 2004 with an index of –1.96. The largest country in the sample
is the Dominican Republic with a population of approximately 8.9 million, while the smallest is
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207
Tuvalu with a population of 11,000. Grenada is the only country to have had a 100% parliamentary
majority between 1998 and 2000. The lowest proportion of seats held by a single party that was able
to form a government was 11% in the Dominican Republic in 1997. The largest amount of donor
assistance was received by Solomon Islands in 2006—a total ODA equal to 108% of GDP, of which
technical assistance was equivalent to 56% of its GDP. The largest amount of loans received in a
single year was by Guyana in 1996, recording new donor lending equal to 12.5% of GDP.
Table 9.1: Summary Statistics of Variables—Full Sample of Small Island Developing States
(1996–2008)
Variable
Description
Observations
RQ
Regulatory quality index
GGI_rq
USP regulatory quality index
PS
Political stability index
287
Maj
175
Herftot
Parliamentary majority
Herfindhal index of
government power
168
Frac
Government fractionalization
168
Mean
Standard
Deviation
Minimum
Maximum
287
(0.08)
0.72
(2.50)
1.30
59
0.36
0.13
0.07
0.61
0.42
0.71
(1.96)
1.48
0.64
0.18
0.11
1.00
0.50
0.22
0.06
1.00
0.50
0.22
0.00
0.95
Gdpg
GDP growth
287
2.76
4.32
(27.07)
14.45
Literacy
Adult literacy rate
287
85.57
15.34
40.00
99.00
Fragile
287
0.09
0.28
0.00
1.00
Eurfrac
Fragile states dummy
Fraction population speaking
European language
287
0.61
0.45
0.00
1.00
Brcol
British colony dummy
287
0.77
0.41
0.00
1.00
Popja
Population
287
1,387
2,358
11
8,870
Disteq
Distance from the equator
Population within 100
kilometers of waterways
Total ODA as a proportion of
GDP
Net donor loans as a
proportion of GDP
Technical assistance ODA as
a proportion of GDP
287
13.59
5.31
0.00
25.00
287
0.96
0.11
0.50
1.00
287
10.79
17.49
0.00
107.80
287
0.20
3.58
(34.10)
12.5
287
3.87
9.05
0.00
56.00
Pop100km
ODAgdp
Loansgdp
Techgdp
( ) = negative value, GDP = gross domestic product, ODA = overseas development assistance, USP = University of South Pacific.
a
Natural logarithm used for estimation.
Source: Author.
6. Results
Table 9.2 presents the results of the OLS estimation of Equation 1.1 with the dependent variable,
regulatory quality, estimated against the political stability index as well as the other control variables
discussed. For the purposes of this preliminary estimation, the political stability variable was lagged
by one period as an initial attempt to minimize any potential endogeneity between it and the
dependent variable. Each of the OLS coefficient estimates shows White’s (1980) heteroskedasticityrobust and country-clustered standard errors in parentheses.
Column 1 presents the results of a basic model, including only a limited number of core
explanatory variables and estimated for the sample of 13 PICs between 1996 and 2008. The results
show that the lagged value of political stability is highly correlated with higher levels of regulatory
quality, recording a positive and highly statistically significant coefficient estimate. The results also
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
show that larger countries tend to be associated with higher levels of regulatory quality, with the
natural logarithm of population also recording a positive, highly significant coefficient estimate.
Column 2 presents the results of the estimation of Equation 1.1 with the inclusion of all
explanatory variables. The results support those of the previous column, with highly statistically
significant positive coefficient estimates for the political stability and population variables. The
results also show a strong positive association between European colonial ties and regulatory quality
measured via the significant positive coefficient on the European language variable. As expected, the
fragile states dummy is negatively signed and significant, suggesting that countries with weak
institutional and governance structures tend to have poorer quality regulatory environments, even
after controlling for their poorer outcomes on other variables such as literacy and GDP growth.
These results are repeated in Column 3, which disaggregates the ODA as a proportion of
GDP variable into its technical assistance and net donor loans components. Whereas in the previous
estimation the ODA variable was insignificant, in this case the results suggest that there are divergent
correlations between the different types of ODA. In the first instance, the loans variable has a
positive correlation with levels of regulatory quality, albeit with its large variance estimate leading to
an insignificant coefficient. In contrast, the technical assistance variable has a negatively and
moderately significant negative correlation with levels of regulatory quality—suggesting that
technical assistance is associated with poorer levels of regulatory quality. However, as discussed
below, these results should be treated with caution and do not imply causation. In much the same
way that technical assistance could cause deterioration in regulatory performance and loans could
entice recipients to undertake economic reform, it is equally likely that donors could allocate more
technical assistance to countries with poor regulatory environments and reward reformist
governments with additional loans.
Finally, Column 4 presents the results of the estimation of the full model using the entire
SIDS sample. This sample includes 30 SIDS, and expands the sample size from 83 observations to
260. In this case, the results suggest that the link between higher levels of political stability and
higher levels of regulatory quality is stronger in PICs than it is in SIDS more generally, with the
political stability variable recording an insignificant but still positive coefficient estimate. The results
also provide support for each of the correlations observed in the previous three columns, in particular
with both the disaggregated ODA variables recording similarly signed and significant coefficient
estimates.
Island Parties
209
Table 9.2: OLS Estimation, in Levels of Variables
OLS Estimation
1996–2008
Regulatory Quality
L.PS
(1)
Basic Model
PIC Sample
(2)
Full Model
PIC Sample
Literacy
LnPop
(4)
Full Model +
SIDS Sample
0.431
0.502
0.406
0.241
a
a
a
(0.147)
(0.122)
GDPg
(3)
Full Model +
PIC Sample
(0.089)
(0.127)
0.004
0.001
0.004
0.019
(0.011)
(0.009)
(0.009)
(0.009)b
0.012
–0.003
–0.002
0.002
(0.007)
(0.006)
(0.006)
(0.006)
0.223
0.144
0.157
0.125
b
b
a
(0.080)
–0.403
–0.450
–0.436
b
b
(0.168)b
(0.084)
Fragile
(0.050)
(0.132)
Brcol
Eurfrac
Pop100km
ODAgdp
(0.176)
–0.099
0.008
–0.016
(0.119)
(0.101)
(0.130)
0.593
0.563
0.875
a
a
(0.167)a
0.002
0.002
0.017
(0.013)
(0.013)
(0.020)
(0.116)
Disteq
(0.041)
(0.115)
–1.042
–0.703
–0.345
(0.263)a
(0.357)c
(0.572)
–0.008
–0.019
b
(0.006)a
–0.004
(0.002)
Techgdp
(0.004)
Loansgdp
Constant
–3.220
0.026
0.014
(0.026)
(0.005)b
–0.651
–1.108
–1.499
a
(0.639)
(0.577)
c
(0.789)c
Observations
83
83
83
260
Countries
13
13
13
30
0.308
4.92
(0.016)
0.687
115.13
(0.000)
0.708
808.10
(0.000)
0.700
31.79
(0.000)
(0.902)
R-squared
F-Stat
Prob > F-Stat
OLS = ordinary least squares, PIC = Pacific island country, SIDS = small island developing states.
a
Significant at 1%.
b
Significant at 5%.
c
Significant at 10%.
Notes: Standard errors in parentheses. Variance estimates country-clustered and adjusted for heteroskedasticity robustness
according to the process developed by White (1980). See Table 9.1 for the full descriptions of variables.
Source: Author.
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
All of these OLS results should be treated with caution. As discussed, political stability is
likely to be jointly determined with levels of regulatory quality, similar to other explanatory variables
such as GDP growth and ODA flows. Table 9.3 presents the results of the estimation of Equation
1.3, using the system–GMM estimation procedure, which controls for endogeneity and other
empirical issues. As discussed, the system–GMM procedure estimates a system of two equations, one
in first differences and the other in levels. The variables in levels are then instrumented with their
own first differences as a means of improving the efficiency of the estimation procedure. For each of
the endogenous variables the second-period lag was chosen for the instruments. For the purposes of
estimation, the political stability, GDP growth, and the ODA variables are treated as endogenous. 22
All system–GMM estimations were carried out in STATA, using the xtabond2 command developed
by Roodman (2009).
A significant issue when estimating the model with only the Pacific island country sample is
that the available degrees of freedom, and countries, are low compared with the number of
instrumental variables required in the construction of the levels and first-differenced equations. This
can cause a variety of problems including weak test statistics for overall instrument exogeneity. For
this reason, as well as to determine whether the Pacific islands experience can be generalized to SIDS
more broadly, each of the full model estimations in this and the following tables were repeated with
the use of the entire SIDS sample. The consistency of the results across the small and large samples
adds a degree of confidence in the core findings.
The results reported in Table 9.3 also use the perceptions-based political stability index as
the core explanatory variable. Column 5 presents the results of the basic model, estimated for the
sample of 13 PICs between 1996 and 2008. The results support those obtained in the OLS analysis.
Political stability has a highly significant, positive impact on levels of regulatory quality, as does
population size. The literacy variable is also intuitively signed and significant, suggesting that
improvements in educational standards can contribute to a better regulatory environment. This
could occur in various ways; for example, a better-informed electorate may result in strengthened
accountability mechanisms for political decision making and increased capacity of the public servants
who design and implement regulatory standards. Column 6 adds the endogenous aggregate ODA
variable into the estimation, which records a negative and highly significant coefficient. This suggests
that, in total, higher levels of ODA have contributed to poorer regulatory quality outcomes in the
Pacific islands. This result is explored further in Column 7, which includes the two disaggregated
measures of ODA as well as the remaining explanatory variables from the full model. Here the results
suggest that a key cause of the negative influence of ODA on regulatory quality has been through the
technical assistance component, while the loans component has a positive, albeit insignificant,
coefficient estimate. 23
22
23
Estimations were also carried out treating the literacy variable as endogenous and the results were similar, but this estimation
required the construction of an additional set of instruments, so the variable was set as exogenous.
This effect is consistent with other studies such as Bowman and Chand (2007) who showed that, while generally positive, the
impact of foreign aid on institutional quality turns negative for small states. Batten (2009) provided further evidence that these
diminishing marginal returns to foreign aid with respect to population size were particularly large in terms of the impact of
technical assistance on institutional quality.
Island Parties
Table 9.3: Impact of Political Stability on Regulatory Quality
System–GMM
Estimation
Regulatory
Quality
PS•
(6)
Basic Model with
ODA
PIC Sample
(5)
Basic Model
PIC Sample
GDPg
Literacy
LnPop
(8)
Full Model
SIDS Sample
0.240
0.139
0.252
0.078
a
b
a
(0.038)b
(0.052)
•
(7)
Full Model
PIC Sample
(0.053)
(0.056)
0.006
0.008
0.005
0.017
(0.005)
(0.005)c
(0.004)
(0.003)a
0.015
0.008
–0.001
0.005
(0.002)a
(0.003)a
(0.003)
(0.001)a
0.155
0.027
0.091
0.013
(0.026)a
(0.034)
(0.031)a
(0.081)
ODAgdp•
–0.008
(0.001)a
Techgdp
•
Loansgdp•
Fragile
Brcol
Eurfrac
Disteq
Pop100km
Constant
–0.012
–0.020
(0.002)a
(0.001)a
0.020
0.012
(0.012)
(0.003)a
–0.489
–0.461
(0.076)a
(0.046)a
–0.012
0.001
(0.058)
(0.028)
0.484
0.780
(0.064)a
(0.835)
0.001
0.020
(0.005)
(0.002)a
–0.593
–0.249
(0.242)b
(0.114)b
–2.893
–1.389
–0.719
–1.525
a
a
c
(0.149)a
(0.284)
(0.387)
(0.394)
Observations
93
93
93
287
Countries
F-Stat
Prob > F-Stat
13
31.60
(0.000)
13
33.63
(0.000)
13
38.05
(0.000)
30
4023.84
(0.000)
Hansen P > • 2
Arellano–Bond
Statistics
1.000
1.000
1.000
1.000
AR(1) P-value
0.986
0.496
0.550
0.539
AR(2) P-value
0.153
0.036
0.275
0.020
AR = autogregressive, GMM = generalized method of moments, ODA = overseas development assistance, PIC = Pacific
island country, SIDS = small island developing states.
a
Significant at 1%.
b
Significant at 5%.
c
Significant at 10%.
Notes: For the Pacific island country sample system–GMM standard errors have been subject to the small sample
adjustment which reports t instead of z statistics and the F-Test instead of the Wald Chi-Squared test. Variables that are
treated as endogenous are marked with •. Standard errors are in parentheses. All estimations fail to reject the null
hypothesis of instrument exogeneity. All robust system–GMM standard errors are adjusted according to the process
developed by Windmeijer (2005). All estimations fail to reject the null hypothesis of no autocorrelation in the AR(1) and
AR(2) residuals at the 95% confidence level. See Table 9.1 for the full descriptions of variables.
Source: Author.
211
212
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Finally, Column 8 estimates the same specification as Column 7 with the inclusion of the
full SIDS sample. Importantly, in all of the system–GMM estimations the core political stability
variable remains positive and highly statistically significant, showing that the effect it has on
regulatory quality is robust to the inclusion of a variety of control variables and to the expansion of
the data to the entire SIDS sample. Each of the other core explanatory variables remains largely
unchanged, with literacy levels and British and European colonial legacies having a significantly
positive impact on levels of regulatory quality. In this case, however, the GDP growth variable is also
positive and significant, indicating that higher rates of GDP growth can stimulate improvements in
regulatory quality—perhaps by providing the economic and financial room to manoeuvre to
undertake regulatory reforms. Both the ODA variables maintain their coefficient signs, although in
this case the loans coefficient is highly significant. This suggests that for SIDS in general and in
contrast to the negative influence of technical assistance, donor lending has helped to encourage
economic reform and improve levels of regulatory quality.
As discussed earlier, there are various ways to measure the impact of political instability on
regulatory performance. The previous approach drew on the perceptions-based index of political
stability. However, while available for a large number of PICs, this variable is limited by its focus on
violent threats to government and people’s perceptions of the likelihood that a change in power may
take place. In practice, while these factors will obviously influence the ability and desire of
incumbent governments to undertake regulatory reform, it is also the behavior of governments while
they are in power that will affect these types of policy outcomes. Appendix 9.4 shows the results of a
number of estimations using three different measures of political instability. The first measures the
parliamentary majority held by government, the second measures the degree of fractionalization
present within Parliament, while the third uses the Herfindahl index of the degree to which power is
concentrated in terms of political parties.
The drawback to using these different measures of political fractionalization is that they are
only available for five PICs (PNG, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, and Vanuatu). To
preserve degrees of freedom, a number of explanatory variables were dropped from the Pacific island
estimations. These included the fragile states dummy (only PNG and Solomon Islands had values
assigned), British colony and European language variables (since all five PICs come from a European
colonial background), and the population within 100 km of a major waterway (since none but PNG
have large inland populations). The results are compared against an estimation of the SIDS sample,
which increases the number of countries to 17 and significantly increases the sample size. Finally, the
results are compared against an estimation of the full model, which includes all explanatory variables,
with the SIDS sample of countries.
Columns 9a, 9b, and 9c indicate the impact of the size of the parliamentary majority held
by government on regulatory quality. Columns 10a, 10b, and 10c report the same series of
estimations with the inclusion of the Herfindahl index of government power. Columns 11a, 11b,
and 11c report results using the measure of government fractionalization.
For all three variables the results are consistent—higher levels of political fractionalization
are associated with significantly lower levels of regulatory quality. In Columns 9a, 9b, and 9c, the
majority variable is positive and significant, indicating that larger parliamentary majorities are
associated with improved regulation. Likewise in Columns 10a, 10b, and 10c, the Herfindahl index
variable is significant and positive, indicating that governments that are comprised of unified parties
vis-à-vis coalitions of smaller parties tend to have better regulatory quality. Columns 11a, 11b, and
11c tell a similar story, with highly fractionalized governments having poorer regulatory outcomes
Island Parties
213
than their more cohesive counterparts, although this effect loses its significance in the case of the
Pacific islands estimation (Column 11a).
Results for the other explanatory variables broadly follow the findings of the previous Table
9.2. Higher rates of literacy have a positive impact on levels of regulatory quality, as do GDP growth
and population size; however, these effects are less consistent than the former estimations, with the
population size effect becoming insignificant in the SIDS samples and the GDP growth effect
becoming insignificant in the Pacific island samples. Donor loans are again shown to have had a
positive influence on regulatory quality, although in this case the effect only appears to be significant
in the Pacific islands sample, rather than in the larger SIDS sample. Likewise, the results show
technical assistance to have a negative impact on regulatory quality, although in this case the effect is
only significant for the SIDS sample of countries, while in the Pacific island sample it is shown to
have a small, but significant, positive impact.
The final set of results consider Equation 1.2, which estimates the impact of political
stability on rates of regulatory reform as opposed to levels of regulatory quality. These results are
presented in Table 9.4. The estimation of this specification places a higher burden on the available
degrees of freedom within the dataset, given that year-on-year changes must be calculated from each
of the countries in the sample. For this reason, these estimations focus on using the political stability
index and for the full SIDS sample, which generates a much larger sample size. The first Column
12a reports results for Equation 1.2 with the use of the previously discussed difference–GMM
procedure. 24 Column 12b results used the system–GMM procedure, while Column 12c results are
from the robust system–GMM procedure. These estimations are replicated in Columns 13a to 13c,
with the disaggregation of the foreign aid variable into its technical assistance and loans components.
Each of the difference–GMM estimations includes a reduced form set of coefficients, given that a
number of these variables are fairly constant through time, and as such must be dropped from the
difference–GMM estimation procedure due to collinearity.
The findings again offer broad support to those in the previous estimations. The political
stability variable is positive and significant in all but the final estimation, suggesting that higher levels
of political stability contribute to faster rates of regulatory reform. The GDP growth variable is also
positive and highly significant in each of the system–GMM estimations, suggesting that rates of
regulatory reform have been faster during economically prosperous periods. Given the similar results
in the previous tables, this finding casts doubt on the claim that Pacific island governments reform
best following significant economic crises.
24
This estimation process determines whether the results are robust to the differencing procedure or whether the significant
coefficient estimates rely on the additional identification obtained from using the additional levels equation during the
instrumentation process for the system–GMM results.
214
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Table 9.4: Impact of Political Stability on Regulatory Reform
Dependant
Variable:
• RQ
L.RQ
•
•
PS
•
GDPg
Lnpop
ODAgdp•
Techgdp
(12a)
Difference–
GMM
(12c)
Robust
System–GMM
(12b)
System–GMM
(13c)
Robust
System–GMM
(13b)
System–GMM
–0.516
–0.296
–0.296
–0.713
–0.257
–0.257
(0.105)a
(0.044)a
(0.062)a
(0.094)a
(0.039)a
(0.081)a
0.208
0.118
0.118
0.189
0.069
0.069
(0.118)b
(0.044)a
(0.057)c
(0.100)b
(0.041)b
(0.050)
–0.006
0.011
0.011
0.002
0.014
0.014
(0.008)
(0.004)a
(0.004)a
(0.006)
(0.004)a
(0.004)a
–0.662
0.033
0.033
–0.327
0.037
0.037
(0.623)
b
(0.028)
(0.565)
c
(0.025)
0.005
–0.004
–0.004
(0.004)
(0.001)a
(0.001)a
(0.017)
•
Loansgdp•
Fragile
(13a)
Difference–
GMM
(0.015)
–0.007
–0.004
–0.004
(0.005)
(0.002)c
(0.002)c
0.012
0.006
0.006
(0.008)
(0.003)b
(0.005)
0.016
–0.088
–0.088
–0.260
–0.073
–0.073
(0.150)
(0.061)
(0.047)b
(0.128)c
(0.061)
(0.056)
–0.001
–0.001
0.001
0.001
(0.002)
(0.002)
(0.002)
(0.002)
–0.095
–0.095
–0.029
–0.029
(0.038)c
(0.039)c
(0.035)
(0.031)
Literacy
Brcol
Eurfrac
Disteq
Pop100km
Constant
0.319
0.319
0.258
0.258
(0.058)a
(0.079)a
(0.052)a
(0.084)a
0.004
0.004
0.007
0.007
(0.003)
(0.006)
(0.003)c
(0.005)
–0.276
–0.276
–0.208
–0.208
(0.137)c
(0.149)b
(0.139)
(0.145)
–0.132
–0.132
–0.421
–0.421
c
(0.270)
264
(0.219)
(0.321)
236
264
264
236
264
27
28
28
27
28
28
48.32
(0.000)
54.40
(0.000)
70.07
(0.000)
85.51
(0.000)
55.29
(0.000)
27.78
(0.006)
Hansen P > • 2
Arellano–Bond
Statistics
0.981
1.000
1.000
1.000
1.000
1.000
AR(1) P-value
0.057
0.000
0.025
0.009
0.000
0.010
Observations
Countries
F-Stat
Prob > F-Stat
(0.191)
AR(2) P-value
0.051
0.226
0.127
0.070
0.367
0.235
AR = autoregressive, GMM = generalized method of moments, PIC = Pacific island country, SIDS = small island developing states.
a Significant at 1%.
b Significant at 10%.
c Significant at 5%.
Notes: Standard errors are in parentheses. Variables that are treated as endogenous are marked with • . All robust system–GMM
standard errors are adjusted according to the process developed by Windmeijer (2005). All estimations fail to reject the null
hypothesis of instrument exogeneity. All estimations fail to reject the null hypothesis of no autocorrelation in the AR(2) residuals at
the 95% confidence level, while they reject the null for the AR(1) process at the 99% confidence level. See Table 9.1 for full
descriptions of variables.
Source: Author.
Island Parties
215
Both the system–GMM and robust system–GMM results in Column 12b and 12c show
highly significant, negative coefficient estimates for the total foreign aid variable, although this effect
is not robust to the difference–GMM estimation procedure. This effect again appears to exert itself
most strongly through the technical assistance component of ODA, with that variable recording
moderately significant coefficient estimates in the system–GMM estimations shown in Column 13b
and 13c. On the other hand, the loans component of ODA appears to have had a more benign
impact on rates of regulatory reform, or in the case of Column 12b, a small and significantly positive
impact.
Finally, it is worth noting the highly significant negative coefficient estimates on the lagged
regulatory quality variable across each of the six estimations. This suggests that the worse a country’s
initial regulatory quality, the easier it will be to undertake reforms that lead to significant
improvements—indicating diminishing marginal returns in the success of SIDS in managing
regulatory reform. The flip side of this finding is that countries that have managed to achieve
reasonable levels of regulatory quality tend to find it more difficult to make further improvements in
their regulatory environment.
7. Conclusion
This research provides new quantitative evidence that political instability and fractionalized party
politics have been a key constraint to developing more effective regulatory institutions in the Pacific
islands. This effect is highly robust to various measures of political instability, the inclusion of a wide
range of control variables, and to the expansion of the sample to a large number of SIDS. This
finding helps to explain why the democratic systems established across the region have not brought
about needed improvements in these economies’ ability to promote private sector enterprise capable
of absorbing sufficient numbers of workers into formal sector employment. The a priori evidence
presented at the beginning of the paper supports these empirical results.
These results do not suggest that Pacific island governments are more predisposed to
clientelist politics per se—but rather that a number of political attribute have developed from the
application of western models of governance and democracy in the region, which have in turn
encouraged this behavior. In particular, the weak and fragmented party systems that have evolved
from historical circumstance and traditional culture have generated a system of incentives for
politicians to favor patronage politics. Furthermore, this system of political incentives has encouraged
the delivery of policy with concentrated benefits rather than the provision of widespread public good.
What can be done to strengthen the region’s political systems to encourage a greater degree
of policy coherence and focus on more effectively providing for the public good?
Strengthening the viability of political parties may be a core component of these efforts.
These efforts should focus on reforms that encourage policy makers to better organize and articulate
the interests of like-minded voters, and to design policy options that address broader national
interests. Stronger party systems would also help to prevent the high levels of political instability
created across the region from loose parliamentary coalitions that are easily dislodged by disgruntled
members or determined rent seekers.
Numerous attempts at these types of reforms have been attempted across the region.
Perhaps the best known example has been PNG’s Organic Law on Political Parties and Candidates
(OLIPPAC). In place since 2001, among other conditions this legislation penalizes “party hopping”
216
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
by members of Parliament 25 in an attempt to instill a greater degree of stability within Parliament—
although the jury is still out on whether this has contributed to an improved policy-making
environment.
Chand and Duncan (2007) also propose that if political parties are to play a more
important role in Pacific politics they need to receive much larger sums of public funding so that
they can build and maintain their political coalitions. With respect to PNG, Chand and Duncan
give the example of utilizing the current system of district support grants; but instead of the funds
being given directly to parliamentarians, Chand and Duncan argue that they should be given as
direct payments to parties. The writers propose that this will allow political parties to have an
increased ability to “reward politicians with cash… to punish politicians that misbehave and the
power to compel voting…” The larger and stronger political parties that may subsequently emerge
from this would be more capable of taking into account issues and policies that are in the interest of
the broader population rather than of any particular constituency.
However, political party systems are highly country-specific and any efforts to support their
development must take into account that the Pacific islands draw on a wide range of electoral
systems—with some more favorable to political party systems than others. Likewise, the identities,
motivations, and relationships between politicians, members of civil society, and other rent-seeking
groups matter. There cannot be a one-size-fits-all solution to improving the impact that political
party organization has on a country’s ability to undertake broad welfare-enhancing regulatory
reform.
Moreover, attempts by donors to engineer or support particular party systems would be a
highly fraught process. The eventual impacts of any reform efforts are likely to be vastly different
from those intended. It is for this reason that political change must be a domestically led process, as
members of Parliament (if anyone) are likely to be the only ones truly alert to all of the interest
groups that have a stake in how reform efforts are manifest.
This situation may condemn donor organizations to remaining on the sidelines of political
reform efforts across the region. However, the strong links that this paper has established between
political party fractionalization, on the one hand, and the region’s poor regulatory quality, on the
other, suggest that donor efforts toward raising levels of economic prosperity are likely to be thwarted
by the continuation of the region’s current political systems. Donors thus have a particularly
important role to play in highlighting and developing the region’s political capacity to undertake
reforms that strengthen domestic political institutions.
Equally, donors must also adopt realistic expectations about what can be achieved by weak
coalition governments, given their potential for political instability. This result is particularly
important with regards to the application of conditionality loan arrangements and other
performance-based aid initiatives. For example, efforts toward regulatory reform may be most
effectively made during periods of relative political stability, while, during periods of instability, aid
resources may be more effectively applied elsewhere. In this sense, seeking to adapt the uses of aid
rather than altering the prevailing political environment is likely to be donors’ most prudent response
to the challenges highlighted by this study.
25
One of the most significant penalties imposed under the OLIPPAC legislation for crossing the floor is that the member’s seat is
declared vacant, so that they must run in a by-election to regain their position.
Island Parties
217
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Appendix 9.1: List of Small Island Developing States
as Classified by the United Nations
American Samoaa
Mauritius
Anguilla
Micronesia, Federated States of a,b
Antigua and Barbudab
Montserrat
Aruba
Naurua,b
Bahamasb
Netherlands Antilles
Bahrain
New Caledoniaa,b
Barbadosb
Niuea
Belizeb
Northern Marianas Islandsa
British Virgin Islands
Palaua,b
Cape Verde
Papua New Guineaa,b
Puerto Ricob
Comoros
a
Cook Islands
Samoaa,b
Cuba
São Tomé and Principe
Dominicab
Seychelles
b
Dominican Republic
Solomon Islandsa,b
Fijia,b
St. Kitts and Nevisb
French Polynesiaa
b
St. Luciab
Grenada
St. Vincent and the Grenadinesb
Guam
Surinameb
Guinea-Bissau
b
Guyana
Haitib
Timor-Lestéa,b
Tongaa,b
Trinidad and Tobagob
b
Jamaica
Tuvalua,b
Kiribatia,b
US Virgin Islands
Maldives
Vanuatua,b
Marshall Islandsa,b
US = United States.
a
Pacific island countries.
b
Countries included in full sample.
Source: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2008).
Island Parties
223
Appendix 9.2: Additional Data Sources and Information
Distance from the Equator
Originally sourced from Rodrik et al. (2004), this dataset was updated for a number of Pacific island
countries on the basis of comparisons with other countries in the region. Nauru, Solomon Islands,
and Tuvalu were assumed to be the same distance from the equator as Papua New Guinea (PNG).
Samoa was assumed to be equal distance to Vanuatu; Tonga was deemed comparable with the
Marshall Islands and Fiji; and Kiribati and Palau were deemed to be the same as the Federated States
of Micronesia (FSM).
Population within 100 kilometers of Major Waterways
Originally sourced from Gallup et al. (1999), this dataset excluded a number of small Pacific island
countries such as the Marshall Islands, the FSM, Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu, and Solomon Islands. Given
their small geographic size, all of these countries were assumed to have 100% of their population
within 100 kilometers of the ocean.
Linguistic Data
Linguistic data measures the proportion of the population speaking a Western European language as
their mother tongue. This data was originally sourced from Hall and Jones (1999); however, it
excluded a number of Pacific island countries. Data was collected primarily from the CIA World Fact
Book country pages, which report the native languages in each country. The additions made to the
existing data include the Marshall Islands (96%), the FSM (96%), Nauru (100%), Samoa (95%),
and Tonga (99%).
Table A9.2: List of Small Island Developing States Included as Fragile States
Country
Start Date
End Date
Comoros
1978
2006
Country
Start Date
End Date
Papua New
Guinea
1999
2004
1981
2006
1989
2003
Guinea
1977
2006
Sao Tome and
Principe
Guinea-Bissau
1992
2006
Solomon Islands
Haiti
1977
2006
Source: Chauvet and Collier (2007).
224
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Appendix 9.3: List of British Colonies and Protectorates in Regions with Small
Island Developing States (Africa, Asia, Caribbean, Central Asia, and the Pacific)
Anguilla
Malta
a
Antigua
Mauritius
Bahamasa
Montserrat
Bahrain
Myanmar
Bangladesh
Namibia
Barbadosa
Naurua,b
a
Belize
Nigeria
Bermuda
Niue
Botswana
Pakistan
Brunei Darussalam
Palestinian Administrative Areas
Cameroon
Papua New Guineaa,b
Cayman Islands
Qatar
Cook Islands b
Samoa a,b
Cyprus
Seychelles
Dominicaa
Sierra Leone
Egypt
Singapore
Falkland Islands
Solomon Islands a,b
Fiji a,b
Somalia
Gambia
South Africa
Georgia
Sri Lanka
Ghana
St. Helena
Gibraltar
a
Grenada
a
St. Kitts and Nevis a
St. Lucia a
Guyana
St. Vincent and Grenadines a
Hong Kong, China
Sudan
India
Swaziland
Iraq
Tanzania
Israel
Tonga a,b
Jamaicaa
Trinidad and Tobagoa
Jordan
Turks and Caicos Islands
Kenya
Tuvalu a,b
Kiribati a,b
Uganda
Kuwait
Vanuatu a,b
Lesotho
Virgin Islands
Malawi
Yemen
Malaysia
Zambia
Maldives
Zimbabwe
a
Countries included in estimations.
b
Countries included as part of the Pacific island region.
Source: Institute of Commonwealth Studies (2007).
Island Parties
225
Appendix 9.4: Impact of Various Measures of Government Fractionalization
on Regulatory Quality
System–GMM
Estimation
Regulatory
Quality
Maj•
(9a)
1.132
(0.504)a
(9b)
1.036
(0.446)b
(9c)
1.019
(0.422)b
Herftot•
(10a)
(10b)
(10c)
1.701
(0.766)a
0.848
(0.397)b
1.151
(0.430)c
Frac•
GDPg•
Literacy
Lnpop
Disteq
Techgdp •
Loansgdp •
0.022
(0.017)
0.036
(0.006)c
0.675
(0.100)c
0.207
(0.035)c
0.004
(0.002)a
0.084
(0.031)a
0.022
(0.012)a
0.028
(0.007)c
0.069
(0.065)
0.038
(0.018)b
–0.013
(0.007)a
0.021
(0.019)
–10.700
(1.438)c
48
5
–4.107
(1.166)c
175
17
Fragile
Brcol
Engfrac
Pop100km
Constant
0.022
(0.011)b
0.019
(0.006)c
0.067
(0.070)
0.039
(0.020)a
–0.014
(0.005)c
0.012
(0.012)
–0.431
(0.194)b
0.139
(0.195)
0.261
(0.206)
–1.066
(0.818)
–2.510
(0.956)c
175
17
0.023
(0.017)
0.035
(0.007)c
0.837
(0.118)c
0.284
(0.049)c
0.007
(0.001)c
0.097
(0.019)c
0.022
(0.016)
0.025
(0.007)c
0.036
(0.064)
0.035
(0.019)a
–0.014
(0.007)a
0.023
(0.022)
–12.511
(1.449)c
45
5
–3.364
(1.035)c
168
17
0.021
(0.013)a
0.017
(0.006)c
0.043
(0.070)
0.038
(0.021)a
–0.013
(0.004)c
0.014
(0.012)
–0.574
(0.200)c
0.147
(0.217)
0.170
(0.230)
–1.302
(0.835)
–1.775
(0.907)a
168
17
(11a)
(11b)
(11c)
–1.560
(0.768)
0.023
(0.017)
0.035
(0.007)c
0.812
(0.123)c
0.277
(0.052)c
0.007
(0.001)c
0.098
(0.019)c
–0.759
(0.394)a
0.023
(0.016)
0.025
(0.006)c
0.029
(0.065)
0.036
(0.018)b
–0.015
(0.008)a
0.020
(0.019)
–10.630
(1.286)c
45
5
–2.500
(0.952)c
168
17
–1.016
(0.417)b
0.023
(0.013)a
0.015
(0.005)c
0.035
(0.070)
0.037
(0.022)a
–0.014
(0.004)c
0.012
(0.011)
–0.570
(0.201)c
0.128
(0.213)
0.219
(0.225)
–1.218
(0.823)
–0.620
(1.010)
168
17
Observations
Countries
Wald • 2/F-Stat
Prob > Wald
96.99
67.99
530.77
121.15
52.98
347.87
127.35
49.83
340.89
• 2/F-stat
(0.000)
(0.000)
(0.000)
(0.000)
(0.000)
(0.000)
(0.000)
(0.000)
(0.000)
Hansen P > • 2
1.000
1.000
1.000
1.000
1.000
1.00
1.000
1.000
1.000
Arellano-Bond
statistics
AR(1) P-value
0.141
0.698
0.282
0.129
0.790
0.274
0.012
0.805
0.242
AR(2) P-value
0.100
0.138
0.231
0.347
0.194
0.448
1.000
1.000
0.403
AR = autoregressive, GMM = generalized method of moments.
a
Significant at 10%.
b
Significant at 5%.
c
Significant at 1%.
Notes: All system–GMM standard errors are adjusted according to the process developed by Windmeijer (2005). For the Pacific
island countries (9a, 10a, 11a) estimations only, system–GMM standard errors are also subject to the small sample adjustment,
which reports t instead of z statistics and the F-
is of instrument exogeneity. All estimations fail to reject the null
hypothesis of no autocorrelation in the AR(2) residuals at a 99% confidence level, and AR(1) at a 95% confidence level. See
Table 9.1 for the full descriptions of variables.
Source: Author.
226
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
10 Timor-Leste
Change, Stagnation, and Questions of
Political Economy
by Rod Nixon 1
ABSTRACT
Timor-Leste is a half-island, post-conflict nation characterized by challenging geographic and
climatic conditions. As at colonial contact over 400 years ago, the rural economy is dominated by
subsistence agriculture. With high population growth, rural development is critical to avoiding
growing poverty and increasing rural–urban movement. Meeting the challenge of rural development
will require well-formulated policies targeted for maximum effect. These should ideally be
implemented efficiently and without interruption from further crises such as that which occurred in
2006. However, the Government of Timor-Leste has not yet committed to sufficient security sector
reform, there is no evidence of effective action against corruption, and there are concerns that the
agricultural development focus is too narrow and signs that the extension service is too inefficient.
Meanwhile, private sector investment faces multiple bottlenecks. The analysis suggests some “levers
of change” that should be used to support improvements in security sector reform, accountability
and quality control monitoring, agricultural policy, agricultural extension delivery, and private sector
promotion. However, it must be recognized that the potential for exercising leverage is diminishing
as oil revenues increase.
1. Introduction
Political economy analysis has received renewed attention in recent years with the advent of the
Drivers of Change (DOC) approach, first promoted by the Department of International
Development (DFID) of the United Kingdom. 2 A key emphasis of the DOC approach as advocated
by DFID (2009, p. 5) is on “how to provide support, taking political feasibility into account.” 3 The
DOC approach values in-depth historical and contextual knowledge of in-country realities to enable
tactical choices to be made about which strategies to advance (DFID 2009, pp. 8–9). Analysis should
1
2
3
The writer is grateful to Ron Duncan for detailed editing of the first draft of this document, to Shane Cave for comments on a
later draft, and to Shane Cave, Paul Keogh, Edward Rees, and Philip Young for discussions on possible levers to advance rural
development outcomes. Errors of fact and judgement are the writer’s alone.
The approach has also been adopted by other development agencies including the Australian Agency for International
Development (AusAID). See Cox et al. (2008).
Bold in the original not included in this text.
228
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
ideally facilitate the identification of “levers of change” that can be used by the development
community to influence realistic change in appropriate areas (DFID 2005, p. 3).
In accordance with the emphasis of the DOC approach on historical factors, this paper
begins with analysis of features that characterized the territory in the pre-independence period and
that continue, in many cases, to influence the nature and capacity of the state and the rural
development challenges facing it today. These include geographic aspects, settlement patterns,
demographic trends, and the subsistence rural economy, as well as traditional sociopolitical
structures. Other important issues include the impact of the Portuguese and Indonesian periods of
rule. The review of structural and historical features is followed in section 3 by an analysis of the new
RDTL (República Democrática Timor-Leste) state. This section examines state institutions and
governance capacity, focusing on (i) security, stability, and order; (ii) democracy and governance;
(iii) public administration and accountability; and (iv) justice. This section finds that the security
sector continues to give rise to considerable concern years after the 2006 instability, and that the
security sector reform (SSR) process is incomplete. On democracy and governance, the analysis finds
that coming to terms with representative democracy in Timor-Leste has proved a challenging
process, and that the municipal governance project may face difficulties in the area of capacity,
among others. An evaluation of various government institutions promoting accountability and
transparency concludes that effectiveness may be compromised by too many institutions with
overlapping functions.
Section 4 on rural change examines the two economies of Timor-Leste: the petroleumfunded public sector economy and the almost stagnant rural economy. Discussion on the rural
economy includes consideration of the impact of the 2006 political and security crisis on rural
development outcomes; quality-control, transparency, and budget expenditure issues associated with
rural infrastructure provision; and obstacles to increasing agricultural productivity and private sector
investment in the rural economy. The final discussion on opportunities and levers summarizes key
obstacles to rural development and suggests strategies for addressing these through development
partner incentive or “lever” approaches, focusing where possible on clear areas of government need or
possible future need.
2. Structural and Historical Features
Geographical Overview
The state of Timor-Leste comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor and the exclave district of
Oecusse, located to the north of the western half of the island. The remainder of the western half of
the island is part of the Republic of Indonesia. The topography of the island has been described as
the product of “a turbulent geological past... broadly characterized by a core of rugged hill and
mountain land consisting of a confused mass of knife-edged, highly dissected ridges trending in
various directions and craggy upland blocks” (Metzner 1977, p. 22).
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries (MAFF), “the island has
relatively unproductive, low fertility, fragile soils” (MAFF 2004, p. 1). The cultivation potential of
the island is further limited by the steep slopes that cover close to half the surface area, making the
thin layer of soil vulnerable to erosion from the severe monsoonal rains. North of the mountain
range, these rains come between November and April and are followed by an extensive dry season
that results in widespread water shortages, imposing a further limitation on agricultural potential.
Timor-Leste
229
Areas to the south and east of the range experience a later wet season and a less arduous dry season
(MAFF 2004, p. 1).
The unpredictability of rainfall is yet another factor that adversely impacts agricultural
production capacity: droughts are likely to result in severe food shortages or even famine (Ormeling
1957, pp. 21, 239–240). According to Fox (1988, p. 262), the capricious nature of the natural
aquifer system, in which water is “trapped in limestone deposits by irregular sheets of clay,”
complicates water supplies even further, since earth tremors may interrupt the flow of spring water
from these aquifers, making new springs appear elsewhere. Fox explains that the hydrological features
of Timor have implications for human settlement possibilities, necessitating “a scattered form of
settlement and cultivation.” As discussed below, these geographical factors have imposed economic
constraints on Timor and influenced the nature of the political systems that have developed on the
island.
Human Settlement and Economic Patterns
The diversity of ethnic groups that have migrated to Timor is reflected in a range of “physical types”
and 14 or more languages. 4 Yet, as Ormeling (1957, p. 236) noted, despite differences, “the various
ethnic groups... [developed]... a striking similarity in their material culture—shifting cultivation
being the base of economy for all groups.” Although various changes contributed to a population
increase in Timor in the 300 years prior to the 20th century, 5 none of these developments changed
the position of shifting cultivation as the dominant mode of production. For example, figures from
the early post-independence period (MAFF 2004, p. 4) indicate only a small proportion of arable
land being used for irrigated agriculture, and with most used for the production of only one crop per
year. 6 As discussed later, the post-subsistence transformation of the rural economy remains a major
challenge, particularly in view of present demographic patterns and notwithstanding the states
accrual of significant petroleum income.
Population growth on Timor has led to repeated warnings that the island’s carrying capacity
is in danger of being exceeded, particularly given prevailing agricultural practices. Current
demographic trends in Timor-Leste have led to concerns that the mid-2004 population of 994,500
may increase to 1,780,000 and even higher by 2025, resulting in a crude population density of 120
people per square kilometers (Bulatao 2008, pp. 5, 16–17). Given the combination of geographic
constraints and cultivation practices, this level of population density is alarmingly high and
highlights the need for rural development advances capable of improving carrying capacity and
reducing urban migration. Achieving these advances will clearly require social, organizational, and
4
5
6
In the account of Ormeling (1957, p. 67), “the Timor archipelago” is referred to as “a transition area, where an Indonesian–
Malay and a Melanesian population component meet and influence each other.”
Changes included the introduction of maize in the second half of the 17th century, as well as the introduction of muskets and
increased trade in sandalwood and beeswax (Fox 1988, pp. 268–275). To these developments might be added the cash crop
coffee, which has benefited Timorese smallholders in upland areas in the eastern half of the island since at least the early
nineteenth century (Clarence-Smith 1992, p. 1; Davidson 1994, pp. 8, 90).
According to MAFF (2004, p. 4), “there are some 420 irrigation schemes in total, of which only about 10 have modest water
storage and thus the potential to produce two crops a year.” The ministry also notes that “even where water is available, farmers
appear to lack the incentive to grow a second crop of rice,” preferring to use the land for livestock grazing or vegetable
production. MAFF notes in relation to small-scale, community-irrigated, agricultural programs that “[h]istorically, farmers in
Timor-Leste have been unable or, in some cases, showed little interest to maintain these schemes, relying on government for
maintenance and, eventually, rehabilitation.” Broadly, the MAFF data indicate (2004, pp. 1–2) that 80% of rural East
Timorese households source their income wholly from farming, with 39% “engaged in subsistence farming, producing neither
saleable surplus nor generating non-farm income.” The two main subsistence crops MAFF (2004, p. 4) identified were maize
(estimated area 121,000 hectares [ha]) and cassava (estimated area 91,000 ha).
230
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
agricultural changes, and is likely to prove challenging given the risk-averse nature of traditional
subsistence societies.
Sociopolitical and Economic Characteristics at Colonial Contact
Although elsewhere in the archipelago, fertile soils and high rainfall supported the development of
technically and administratively complex societies with broad-spanning interdependencies, surplus
generation, and administrative capacities, the geographic constraints of Timor were not conducive to
such a development trajectory. In contrast to the irrigation-based states of Java, with their webs of
inter-reliant communities and bureaucratic service delivery, the political structures that developed in
Timor prior to the colonial consolidation of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were characterized
by unstable, head-hunting micro-kingdoms continually warring over entitlements to draw tribute
from the narrow margin of surplus produced by subsistence farmers. Portuguese colonial accounts
from eastern Timor describe a political landscape featuring unstable and opportunistic alliance
patterns and core-periphery dynamics into the late 19th century, at least in relation to the interaction
between Timorese reinos (kingdoms) and the Portuguese colonial administration.
Notwithstanding the subsistence basis of Timorese society and the ongoing warfare, the
political structures that characterized the reinos of Timor were ritually complex. Even if traditional
Timorese social structures lack the administrative and organizational capacities that developed on
Java, commentators (Glover 1986, p. 12; Capell 1944, p. 196) have remarked that the Timorese
social institutions are highly structured in comparison with the Melanesian “big-man” systems to the
east, notwithstanding the mixed ethnic origins of the population, which includes a Melanesian
component. In this respect, the “developed class system with hereditary chiefs” (Glover 1986, p. 12)
is perhaps of particular note.
In the course of the ensuing colonial consolidation of Timor, the petty kings, or liurais,
would ultimately be disempowered for the most part and the sucos (villages), of which their reinos
were comprised, integrated into colonial administrative units. Yet the demise of the formal authority
of the liurais would by no means precipitate the destruction of the ritual and administrative
authority that prevailed within the sucos, which became integrated into the Portuguese system of
colonial administration. Much later still, at the point when the territory of East Timor was emerging
from almost a quarter century of Indonesian occupation and preparing for transition to national
independence, Berlie (2000, pp. 139–140) would note that the hereditary authority of suco leaders
remained a fundamental feature of life throughout the territory, with the economy remaining
overwhelmingly characterized by subsistence agriculture. 7
Compared with some Pacific societies, the relatively structured nature of Timorese
sociopolitical institutions may ultimately support a greater level of political stability. On the other
hand, adherence to traditional and semi-feudal power structures can complicate the advancement of
rational–legal administrative processes. In respect to the current governance situation in TimorLeste, Blunt (2009, p. 94) warns that “where there are strong traditional beliefs in patronage as a
central tenet of social exchange and reciprocal obligation, morality will consist in the partial or
particularistic distribution of development benefits—towards ruling elites and their supporters.”
7
See also Davidson (1996, p. 11), according to whom it had long been the authority of suco leaders whose “primary authority”
was most respected by the Timorese, even prior to the subjugation of the liurais in the early 20th century.
Timor-Leste
231
The Portuguese Colonial Period
While the Portuguese reached Timor in the early 16th century, no substantial settlement was
constructed in the region until 1566 (for examples, Boxer (1960, pp. 350–354); Vaz (1964); Fox
(1996, pp. 5–7); Gunn (1999, pp. 51–67); Schulte Nordholt (1971, pp. 159–181); and Farram
(2004, pp. 37–41). There followed a long period during which the Portuguese competed with the
Dutch and a Portuguese-native mestiço population known as the Topasses for control of the
sandalwood trade. By the early 1660s, when the Dutch and Portuguese resolved to end their regional
conflict, Topasse power brokers were endeavoring to influence developments over the entire island
(Boxer 1960, p. 352). In 1702, after almost 200 years of engagement, the Portuguese finally
established a permanent settlement on Timor at Lifau, in what is now the Timor-Leste exclave of
Oecusse. Here the Portuguese faced constant insurgencies and eventually relocated to Dili in 1769
(Fox 1996, p. 8). Thereafter, the Portuguese made few advances toward consolidating control of the
eastern half of the island until the late 19th or early 20th century (for example, Boxer 1960, p. 335;
and Fox (1996, p. 8). Economic performance was poor, with sandalwood stocks so depleted by the
1850s that Portuguese authorities in Macao, China, cut shipping services for almost 4 decades. 8 As
economic malaise and general misery gripped the territory in the mid-19th century, warfare between
Timorese kingdoms and insurgencies against the Portuguese were common.
The period of economic stagnation between 1851 and 1916 is important for two reasons.
First, during this period the colonial powers sought to reach agreement about the location of their
respective domains in the Timor region and assert control over their colonial subjects. Second, the
process of colonial consolidation was the catalyst for significant social and political developments
(Farram 1999). In response to the decline of the sandalwood trade, the Portuguese initially
endeavored to raise revenue through expanding the production of coffee, believed to have been
cultivated by Timorese smallholders for sale to Chinese merchants since at least the early 19th
century (Davidson 1949, pp. 8, 90; Clarence-Smith 1992, p. 1). 9 To facilitate this outcome, the
Portuguese implemented a program that must rank among the more transformative rural
development policy initiatives in eastern Timor—the distribution of coffee seedlings. The Timorese
communities were expected to cultivate coffee and transfer a proportion of the harvest to the
Portuguese administration; however, the new revenue-raising program did not work as planned.
While the production of coffee expanded, no proportionate increase in government earnings
followed, ultimately resulting in the introduction of a capitação (head tax) in 1908 (Davidson 1994,
p. 104) by a colonial administration that had long struggled to make the territory pay its way. The
introduction of taxes is considered a major factor leading to the “Great Rebellion” of 1911, which
was suppressed only after a bloody campaign involving over 12,000 troops and use of a Portuguese
gunboat, the Pátria, to shell rebel positions (Gunn 1999, pp. 160–169; Davidson 1994, pp. 90–104;
Clarence-Smith 1992, pp. 2–6; and Jolliffe 1978, p. 35).
Only following suppression of the rebellion could Portuguese Timor be considered to have
been pacified. This development resulted in a dramatic change in the power held by the colonial
administration vis-à-vis the power held by the liurais, and the system of Portuguese administration
finally became a reality with up to 13 districts divided into 50 to 60 subdistricts (or postos) and the
municipality of Dili (Saldanha 1994, p. 52; Gunn 1999, pp. 244–245). It was within each of the
postos that the colonial administrative system met the traditional administrative system that
continued to operate at the level of the Timorese suco (Archer 1941, p. 7). This administrative
8
9
See Davidson (1994, pp. 83–87) for an overview of the financial crisis faced by Portuguese Timor during this period.
Note that Clarence-Smith (1992) considers that the introduction of coffee may date back as early as the mid-18th century.
232
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
approach suited the under-resourced Portuguese colonial model and, together with the general lack
of modernisation, ensured that at the very end of Portuguese colonial rule in the 1960s and 1970s,
Portuguese Timor remained a prime destination for Western anthropologists seeking to study
traditional social organization.
Despite attempts to expand agricultural production during the late 19th century and the
early 20th century, during which time coffee replaced sandalwood as the main export, prosperity for
the colony remained elusive; on the brink of World War II the territory was referred to by a visiting
British representative, C.H. Archer (1941, p. 37), as having “long been in a precarious economic
situation.” Even the governor, wrote Archer, “considered the colony’s best defence [against invasion
by the Japanese] to lie in its unattractiveness as a prize,” although this ultimately failed to save the
territory from a devastating period of occupation between 1942 and 1945, during which many died
due to famine caused by a merciless Japanese food collection policy.
Visiting Portuguese Timor at the end of the colonial era (in 1974) for the purpose of
studying decolonization, Helen Hill (2002, p. 40) described the general situation as “one of
stagnation and neglect,” characterized by “a traditional society where capitalist penetration had
hardly taken place at all, with a people relying overwhelmingly on subsistence agriculture and a
colonial power which would not generate any kind of development.”
The End of the Colonial Period and the Birth of Politics
In April 1974, a revolt of the Armed Forces Movement in Lisbon brought a close to the
authoritarian regime that had ruled Portugal and its remaining territories for the previous halfcentury. However, the uninspired and lethargic colonial administration that East Timorese colonial
subjects had experienced for generations had provided the small number of educated assimilados and
the rest of the population with little preparation for creating a democratic, accountable, and
development-focused independent state. The vulnerability factors that prevailed at this point, most
of which continue to influence developments, include the following:
The Subsistence Economy
During the Portuguese colonial period there were no economic or social transformations to tear the
majority of the East Timorese away from their traditional beliefs. As a result, the conclusion of the
Portuguese colonial period saw little familiarity with the legal and bureaucratic forms of authority
central to the functioning of the modern state (Weber 1978, pp. 220–221). Clearly, the subsistence
rural economy and the traditional, collectivist-oriented value systems associated with it, presented
obstacles at other levels too. As Duncan (2007, pp. 6–7) notes in relation to the Pacific, individual
(although not necessarily collective) entrepreneurship can face severe challenges in contexts where
distributive kinship systems predominate. Undoubtedly, this factor continues to influence business
development in Timor-Leste in the present day.
Education Levels
Figures presented by Gunn (1999, p. 214) suggest that fewer than 2,000 people were able to read
and write by the late 1920s. Based on his 1941 visit, Archer (1941, p. 8) referred to the lack of a state
education system in Portuguese Timor (unlike in Dutch Timor). A Portuguese government decision
to allocate the Catholic Church responsibility and resources for the delivery of education in
Timor-Leste
233
Portuguese colonies resulted in a significant improvement in the post-war period; however, figures
cited by Taylor (1991, p. 17) indicate that a 93% illiteracy rate prevailed as late as 1973. 10
Martial Traditions
Lee correctly asserts (2000, p. 185) that a “fighting spirit... is the one commodity from which the
island of Timor has always suffered an abundance.” The Portuguese are not without some
responsibility since, even after pacification, they sought to encourage and harness indigenous martial
capacities to consolidate colonial authority and suppress rebellions. As developments would
demonstrate, the association between political power and use of martial force remained strong in the
minds of the aspiring indigenous political elites as Portuguese power in Timor receded from April
1974 onward, drawing the new East Timorese political organizations into a civil war. This
development was followed by a quarter century of resistance against Indonesian occupation,
reinforcing the legitimacy of armed force.
Political Inexperience
The small group of indigenous political actors who emerged at the conclusion of the Portuguese
period had limited political experience. Portuguese secret police had been stationed in Dili following
the 1959 rebellion in Viqueque 11 and there were only minimal opportunities for participating in
decision-making forums, 12 even for the few who qualified for participation on the basis of their
assimilado status. Additionally, although some of those who became involved in the new political
organizations had experience either in the colonial administration or the small private sector, many
were young, with the average age of members of one of the main organizations, FRETILIN 13
(originally known as ASDT 14) estimated at 27 (Taylor 1991, p. 27). 15
As the reference to “revolutionary front” in the FRETILIN name suggests, links with other
Portuguese territories meant that some new political actors had been influenced by the ideas, or at
least the rhetoric, of radical movements in the Portuguese world (Nicol 1978, p. 102). 16 On the
other hand, UDT, 17 another of the main political organizations that emerged in 1974, had a more
conservative outlook.
If the lines along which the formation of the ASDT/FRETILIN and UDT organizations
had taken place had been to a greater or lesser extent arbitrary in the beginning, then far more serious
divisions developed between these parties and the third notable organization to emerge, the pro10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
While primary school enrollments are said to have increased from several thousand in 1946 to more than 57,000 by the early
1970s (Saldanha 1994, p. 59, Taylor (1991, p. 17), this level of increase has been questioned (Jones 2000, p. 44). Jones also
points out that only in 1952 did the first secondary or middle school (Lyceum) open, with enrollments “remaining extremely
small, with numbers fluctuating in the range of 200 to 800 students during the course of the 1960s” (see also Gunn 1999, p.
246).
The secret police continued to operate in Portuguese Timor until the overthrow of the Caetano regime on 25 April 1974. See
Chamberlain (2005, p. 20); Hill (2002, p. 30); and Taylor (1991, p. 24).
Such as the Acçoa Nacional Popular (Popular National Accord).
Frente Revolucionária de Timor-Leste Independente (Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor).
Associação Social Democrata Timorense (Timorese Social Democrat Association).
See also Hill (2002, p. 69), who remarks that “[i]n general the UDT leaders were older than the ASDT [FRETILIN] founders
and were employed at a higher level in the administration or engaged in private business ventures.”
Nicol, who was on the scene at the time, reported that there were “no more than seven” communists involved in the
FRETILIN leadership. Still, as indicated by the change of name from ASDT to FRETILIN, which took place on 12 September
1974 (Jolliffe 1978, p. 63; Nicol 1978, p. 79; and Taylor 1991, pp. 48–49), it appears clear that the left-wing radicals involved
in ASDT/FRETILIN were successful in initiating a number of changes that increasingly characterized it as a left-wing
organization.
União Democrática Timorense (Timorese Democratic Union).
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Indonesian APODETI. 18 Xanana Gusmão (2000, pp. 17–18), who later became a resistance leader
before becoming inaugural RDTL President and then Prime Minister in 2007, remembers observing
a situation vulnerable to getting “completely out of hand,” and recalls that “[f]riends avoided me
until I identified myself politically, in writing, and once again I was greeted and could greet others
with closed fist, the Fretilin salute! At first, friends and colleagues in the UDT continued to raise
their hands and greet me. Then came indifference, until finally it became obvious that we were
avoiding each other.” 19
Despite an attempt at a coalition involving FRETILIN and UDT initiated in early 1975,
relations between the parties deteriorated (Nicol 1978, pp. 84–91; Hill 2002, pp. 120–124; Jolliffe
1978, p. 94; and Dunn 1996, p. 76). The antipathy between the major political organizations, their
willingness to use martial means to realize political objectives, and their inability to resist the divisive
tactics of the Indonesian military, which held geopolitical aspirations involving East Timor,
ultimately proved explosive and resulted in a brief civil war that took place during August 1975. In
the ensuing chaos, recent political alliances and doctrines sometimes blurred as ancient rivalries
emerged and opportunities for retributive killings were created. 20
After its victory, FRETILIN ruled for about 3 months, during which time the ad hoc
government fought Indonesian insurgencies on the western border and issued a unilateral declaration
of independence, not long before the launch of a full-scale Indonesian invasion on 7 December
1975. The invasion was followed by almost a quarter century of resistance against Indonesian
occupation. At the conclusion of this period, rifts remained in East Timor society stemming from
the party formation period of 1974–1975 and developments that transpired during the resistance
years.
Change and Stagnation during the Indonesian Occupation
Although the Indonesians were to put more resources into rural development in East Timor than the
Portuguese did, the circumstances of their arrival augured poorly for their chances of success.
Commentators have remarked that the severe upheaval 21 of the invasion years was followed by a
18
19
20
21
Associação Popular Democrática Timorense (Timorese Popular Democratic Association).
Gusmão writes of this development that “[t]his really was not what I had wanted. UDT parents, Apodeti uncles, Fretilin
children. What shit this freedom was!”
The Comissão de Acolhimento, Verdade e Reconciliação (CAVR, or Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation)
investigation (CAVR 2005, Part 3, p. 42) found that the highest death rate during the civil war period was “in the rural areas,
where tensions based on long-standing clan feuds and personal grudges, intensified by more recent militant party ideological
divisions, exploded into violence.” See also Hicks (1983, p. 22), who reflects in relation to this period that “Western notions of
right wing and left wing, capitalist and communist, were meaningless to the vast majority of the Timorese population” and
suggests that “old rivalries and loyalties” dating back to the 19th century or longer may have played a role in fuelling the 1975
conflict.
The impact of the invasion was devastating, and resulted in widespread famine and disease (CAVR 2005, Part 8, pp. 6–7).
Saldanha (1994, p. 136) observed firsthand the unsanitary and overcrowded conditions of the internment camps, which
frequently resulted in sickness and death. The dire food shortages can be largely attributed to the destruction of agricultural
capacity (resulting from disruption to clearing, planting, and harvesting cycles) caused by internal dislocation and forced
internment. According to CAVR (2005, Part 3, pp. 84–85), the number of East Timorese held in “resettlement villages” and
“internment camps” at the end of 1979 following the fall of the FRETILIN strongholds was more than 300,000 and possibly
more than 370,000. In addition to the agricultural disturbances caused by the confinement of approximately half the
population, the invasion resulted in substantial livestock losses, the impact of which was felt for many years. Saldanha (1994, p.
339) has estimated that the destruction of livestock amounted to nearly 80%, and Aditjondro (1994, pp. 12–13, 35) cites
figures suggesting that numbers of cattle, buffaloes, horses, and poultry continued to decline steeply into the second half of the
1980s. Another factor related to the early conflict period that may have had an ongoing impact on agricultural productivity, and
hence nutrition, concerns the suspected use of defoliants, particularly in eastern parts of East Timor (Aditjondro 1994, p. 10;
Beazley 1999, pp. 17–18).
Timor-Leste
235
period of high economic growth (up to 10%) from 1983 until the onset of the Asian economic crisis
in 1996 (Saldanha 1994, pp. 180–182; da Costa and Soesastro 2002, pp. 2–3). Significantly, this
high growth rate was fuelled not by local productivity increases derived from structural changes to
the economy but by a steady flow of Indonesian government capital directed at infrastructure
development and administration activities, estimated at approximated $100 million annually in the
1980s (da Costa and Soesastro 2002, pp. 2–3) and referred to by Soesastro (1989, p. 207) as “by far
the largest central government financial allocations (on a per capita basis) of any region in
Indonesia.” The contribution of private sector capital to the economic growth rate was minimal,
since East Timor attracted almost no private investment throughout the entire Indonesian period
(Saldanha 1994, pp. 151–152, 176–178; da Costa and Soesastro 2002, pp. 2–3; and Soesastro 1989,
pp. 216–217). 22
The development process itself has been characterized by Saldanha (1994, pp. 131–178) as
centrally controlled (from Jakarta) and of a “high technology” nature (focused largely on
infrastructure construction) 23 that demanded imported labor, much to the dissatisfaction of East
Timorese. Saldanha also argues that the integrity of this nonparticipatory and overly rapid
development agenda suffered further compromise because of the tendency for “extravagance and
corruption” within the civil service.
The security emphasis that prevailed throughout the Indonesian occupation impacted the
nature of development outcomes. Commentators (Aditjondro 1994, pp. 19–20; Beazley 1999, p. 14)
have remarked that resettlement and housing construction projects were often motivated less by
agricultural objectives than by the desire to resettle local populations in places where they could be
easily supervised and controlled by Indonesian security forces, away from areas of guerrilla activity.
Highlighting the security-related emphasis of rural and regional development objectives and the
neglect of economic outcomes, Saldanha (1994, pp. 149, 161, 166–167) notes that budget
allocations for the communications sector typically approximated 30%, whereas allocations for
agriculture were usually only around 10%.
In the area of agricultural policy, the Indonesian administration emphasized agricultural
self-sufficiency, including in rice production, and it has been estimated (Gunn 2003, p. 190) that
“paddy and rain-fed rice” production may have covered 80,000 hectares (ha) by the late Indonesian
period. 24 MAFF (2004, p. 4) later reported that motivation and capacity issues appear to have made
these projects of questionable sustainability in the absence of an Indonesian presence or other
assistance, since local communities often demonstrated little capacity to maintain or rehabilitate
them.
While there is undoubtedly a role for irrigated agriculture in Timor-Leste, geographic
realities have caused commentators to question the wisdom of agricultural self-sufficiency. During
the Indonesian period, Soesastro (1989, pp. 222–228) asserted that the promotion of areas of
comparative advantage (including estate crops and livestock) would have been a better approach.
22
23
24
As an indication of the severity of the situation, Soesastro reports that manufacturing comprised less than 1% of GDP in 1986
and showed no signs of improvement.
Perhaps the construction-centered nature of the development program is best illustrated by the roadwork program. According
to official Badan Perencanaan Pembangunan Daerah (BAPPEDA, or Indonesian Regional Development Planning Board)
figures (1997, p. 325, Table 8.1.2), East Timor had 6,363 km of roads by 1996, of which 3,513 km were sealed.
This may be slightly optimistic. Young et al. (2010, Technical Note 1, p. 1) refer to figures suggesting “a total potential
irrigation area of 71,258 ha.”
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
While it is most likely that East Timor offers a suitable environment for timber
production, 25 coffee remains East Timor’s main estate crop and the sector is in desperate need of
modernization. The evidence suggests that the coffee sector either stagnated or deteriorated during
the Indonesian period. For much or most of this time, the coffee industry was controlled by the
military monopoly PT Salazar/PT Batara, a concern that purchased coffee from farmers at onequarter of the market value. According to a former Singapore businessman, the military connection
to the East Timor coffee trade commenced directly following the Indonesian invasion, in order that
money borrowed from Chinese Singaporean financiers to support the invasion could be repaid.
Reportedly, millions of dollars worth of stolen coffee, teak, and sandalwood oil was shipped to
Singapore in a leased freighter soon after the invasion.
With the fleeing of plantation managers, coffee production became even more smallholderdominated in the Indonesian period than it was during the Portuguese period, with smallholder
operations increasing from 60% (of a total of 48,000 ha of coffee-producing land) during Portuguese
times to 80% during Indonesian times (Soesastro 1989, p. 225). While smallholder farming is not
negative in and of itself, in this case it was associated with the neglect of the sector due to the poor
understanding of coffee crop management among smallholders. It is clear, therefore, that East Timor
passed through the Indonesian period with no modernization of its most important cash crop—a
development that has contributed to the rehabilitation of the coffee sector being a major rural
development priority.
The United Nations Period
Arriving in Dili following the Indonesian exodus of 1999, one observer (Federer 2005, p. 69)
reported “[m]ore than half the buildings in Dili” destroyed and East Timor was “a land without
governance, without an economy, no basic services, no food, no law and almost no visible
inhabitants.” An initial assessment by the United Nations Office of Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (UNOCHA) estimated that over 75% of East Timor’s population had been displaced and
that over 70% of housing, utilities, and public buildings had been destroyed (UNOCHA 1999).
Gunn (2003, pp. 190–192) refers to reports from rural areas of widespread destruction or looting of
agricultural and fishing equipment, the theft or destruction of herds and seed stocks, and the burning
of crops.
Notwithstanding the apparent absence of governance, order soon returned to the villages
and an ad hoc administration system quickly emerged incorporating suco and subdistrict
representatives of the CNRT, 26 which had been prominent at the international level in advancing the
cause for independence. Interestingly, those who assumed positions in the CNRT national network
at the grassroots level did not conform to the typology of the CNRT’s elite-level membership.
Whereas the former were characteristically leaders in the traditional administrative system with
strong connections to local subsistence realities, the latter had in many cases spent the occupation
years abroad. Probably influenced more by assimilado values than the CNRT representatives in the
mountains, many returning political actors bore unresolved tensions that had origins in the civil war
and resistance periods, and many were reported (Federer 2005, p. 88) to be possessed of notions of
entitlement.
25
26
Survey work (Nixon 2005) indicates that the plantation forestry sector was expanded under Indonesian administration and that
of the 14,213 hectares of state plantations identified in East Timor in 2005, about 96% dates from the Indonesian period.
Concelho Nacional da Resistência Timorense (National Council of Timorese Resistance).
Timor-Leste
237
During the transition period, economic growth was recognized by the Central Fiscal
Authority (CFA) as being “centred in Dili... [with]... less spending and less reconstruction in the
districts” (CFA 2001, p. 5). Some empirical indication of the Dili-centered nature of activities
during the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) period is offered
by the UNTAET-era Business Register. 27 In the period following independence, 5,179 of the 6,677
businesses (77%) featured in this register were based in Dili. As a corollary of the Dili-centered
growth, there was a population drift to the capital from the districts as individuals seeking
alternatives to subsistence agriculture sought work in Dili (CFA 2001).
As elections for a constitutional assembly (which would ultimately transform into the
national Parliament) scheduled for 30 August 2001 approached, CNRT was formally disbanded in
June 2001 to create space for other political organizations to participate in democratic processes
(Dodd 2001; Grant 2001; and Beauvais 2001, p. 1132). By August 2001, sufficient political space
had been created for no less than 16 political parties. Notwithstanding the large field, FRETILIN
claimed victory with 43 of the 75 national seats and 12 of the 13 district seats.
UNTAET attracted criticism on various fronts—in particular, the time taken to realize
meaningful East Timorese participation in the administration. There is no doubt, however, that East
Timor in the post-Indonesian period faced a serious skill shortage and that finding suitable recruits
for senior administrative positions was difficult. References to an unemployment rate as high as 80%
or more, and suggestions that UNTAET may have been able to influence this, fail to recognize both
the overwhelmingly subsistence nature of the East Timorese rural economy and the fact that no
short-term transitional administration would have been capable of transforming this reality.
As Federer (2005) argued with prescience, given the 2006 instability, there may have been
merit in a longer transition to independence under an international trusteeship. This could only have
happened had the international community shared a more realistic understanding of the challenges
of state development in non-state social contexts (and post-conflict ones at that). In any event,
Timor-Leste achieved independence on 20 May 2002, at which point it still faced the challenges
associated with creating a functioning administration, maintaining a peaceful engagement with
multi-party democracy, advancing the development of the rural economy, and managing the
emerging petroleum sector with prudence.
In a New State
In their study of violence in post-conflict societies, Collier et al. (2006, p. 7) found that of 68 “postconflict episodes,” war recurred in 31 cases within the first 5 years of independence. Identifying
feasibility as a prime factor leading to post-conflict violence, Collier et al. (2006, pp. 5, 15) observed
that in post-conflict contexts, “peace appears to depend upon an external military presence sustaining
a gradual recovery.” Applying the findings of Collier et al. to the Timor-Leste case study, Shoesmith
(2007, pp. 23–25) notes that international troops were withdrawn from Timor-Leste only 3 years
after independence and that events leading to the 2006 crisis began to emerge within 6 months. 28
27
28
The Business Register is an unpublished database originally developed during the UNTAET period. The calculations included
in the text are based on a post-UNTAET version accessed in mid-2003.
In fact, a warning had sounded much earlier, when serious riots broke out on 4 December 2002 that resulted in the shooting
deaths of two people and the destruction and looting of high-profile properties. While political agitation may have played a role
in the December 2002 riots, Smith (2004, p. 279) later remarked that “[w]hile it was popular to speak of agitators, the fact that
a crowd was so easy to mobilize was worrying and indicative of underlying tensions towards the government, the police and
foreign business.”
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Factors contributing to the volatility of the political situation in 2006 were numerous and a
number have already been discussed. Many were identified in advance of the 2006 political crisis and
a summary would include the following: 29
„
the combination of challenging geographical conditions, an overwhelmingly subsistence
rural economy, low per capita income, a high fertility rate, and an emerging youth “spike”
in the national demographic profile;
„
a Dili-centered economy with limited employment opportunities and increasing urban
migration to Dili by low-skilled job seekers (including an abundance of young men);
„
established clandestine and martial traditions and the existence of numerous martial arts
gangs and veterans groups;
„
a large number of unresolved land and property disputes involving customary, formal, and
irregular claims deriving from the Portuguese, Indonesian, and post-Indonesian periods;
„
serious antipathy between veteran (and still active) political leaders, including Prime
Minister Marí Alkatiri and President Xanana Gusmão;
„
a semi-presidential political system that provided for two centers of power associated with
the positions of Prime Minister (with executive power) and the President (supreme
commander of the defense force); 30
„
a hazardous police–military dynamic that would exacerbate the antipathy between Alkatiri
and Gusmão and the potential for conflict, given their respective positions within the
bicentric governance system. One element of this dynamic included recruitment for the new
F-FDTL 31 defense force biased toward both “westerners” (or Firaku) and supporters of
Xanana Gusmão and F-FDTL Chief Taur Matan Ruak (Shoesmith 2003, pp. 236–247). A
second element concerned the development of a politicized police force under the Police
and the Interior Minister Rogério Lobato, who in 1975 had held the position of FRETILIN
defense minister (Rees 2003; 2004, pp. 22, 54–55; and Shoesmith 2003, pp. 248–249).; 32
and
„
the establishment of armed groups for political purposes, a development that once again
involved Police and the Interior Minister Lobato. 33
29
30
31
32
33
For discussion on prevailing risk factors in the post-independence period, see Wainwright et al. (2002, pp. 10–14); Whittlesey
and Moore (2003, pp. 2–6); Shoesmith (2003, pp. 232–234; 2005, p. 165); Smith (2004, pp. 283–288); Brown et al. (2004,
pp. vi–9); and Cutter et al. (2004, pp. 13–25).
Shoesmith (2003, p. 232) warned of a “rivalry... that could frustrate the attempt to establish an effective and... democratic state
in East Timor,” given that these positions were occupied at independence by Alkatiri and Gusmão, respectively.
The acronym F-FDTL (meaning Timor-Leste Defence Force) is derived from FALINTIL or Forças Amadas de Libertação
Nacional de Timor-Leste.
Note that Rogério Lobato was a known one-man risk factor who had been associated with a host of irregular activities including
diamond smuggling in Angola, contact with the Khmer Rouge during the second half of the 1970s, and illegal sandalwood
trading (as the suspected “Mr Big” in East Timor/Timor-Leste). See Shoesmith (2003, p. 238); Smith (2004, p. 281); Aarons
(2006); ICG (2006, pp. 4–6); and Jolliffe (2007). See also Gusmão (2006), in which reference is made to Lobato’s sandalwood
activities, diamond smuggling, and intimidatory tactics toward other FRETILIN officials during the period of exile in
Mozambique.
Following the events of 2006, Lobato was sentenced to seven and a half years imprisonment in March 2007 after being found
guilty of illegally distributing firearms to militias for the purpose of eliminating government opponents (Jolliffe 2007; BBC
2007). In an example of the Timor-Leste “culture of impunity,” Lobato served only 1 month of his sentence before managing
to leave the country on medical grounds (Fitzpatrick 2007b), soon after it became clear that FRETILIN had lost the 2007
parliamentary elections. Note that Nicolau Lobato (Rogério’s brother) is also reported (Nicol 1978, p. 101) to have organized a
security force responsible to him alone in 1974–1975 when he held the position of FRETILIN vice president.
Timor-Leste
239
Elections held in 2007 saw Gusmão ally José Ramos-Horta win the presidency. Several
months after the presidential elections on 30 June, an election for a new Parliament was held.
Among the parties contesting this was a new party formed by ex-President Xanana Gusmão called
the Congresso Nacional de Reconstrução de Timor (CNRT, or National Congress for Timorese
Reconstruction). 34 The results of the election indicated that FRETILIN had experienced a dramatic
reduction in support, capturing little more than 29% of the vote. Whereas FRETILIN polled well in
the eastern districts of Baucau, Lautem, and Viqueque, they generally received less than 25% of the
vote in the remaining 10 districts. Even so, FRETILIN managed to win the highest number of seats
of any single party (three more than CNRT), and were seriously aggrieved (with acts of violence and
property burnings breaking out almost immediately) when it became clear on 6 August 2007 that
the future government would be formed around CNRT in partnership with a number of the smaller
parties. Following his swearing in on 8 August 2007, Gusmão swore in the cabinet of the new
Aliança para Maioria Parlamentar (AMP, or Alliance of the Parliamentary Majority) government,
which FRETILIN has continued to refer to as a “de facto” government.
3. Evaluation of State Institutions and Governance Capacity
Although no consensus may exist on how to profile the capacity of states and their ability to foster
improved rural development outcomes, key governance themes emerging from the literature 35 can be
arranged into the categories of (i) security, stability, and order; (ii) democracy and governance; and
(iii) public administration, accountability, and justice. Analysis of these themes forms the basis of the
following governance “snapshot” of Timor-Leste, while analysis of a range of equally important
economic considerations (including demographic trends, revenue-raising potential, and rural
development) is integrated into a later section on the status of rural reform efforts.
Security, Stability, and Order
Smith’s view (2004, p. 293) that internal factors would present the real threat to security, stability,
and order in Timor-Leste proved correct. Undoubtedly, the future stability of the state will depend
in large part on whether sustained economic development occurs, and the findings of Collier et al.
(2006, p. 5) suggest the 2007–2012 term of government is an important period for Timor-Leste
since, following the 2006 crisis, the international community undertook to provide the “external
military presence” necessary to support a “gradual economic recovery.” 36
34
35
36
Gusmão’s decision to draw on the symbolic value inherent in the CNRT acronym raised the ire of FRETILIN’s Marí Alkatiri,
who reportedly (AFP 2007) accused the new CNRT organization of attempting “to confuse and deceive voters.” CNRT,
meanwhile, endeavored to capitalize on the heritage of inclusivity associated with the original CNRT and announced (CNRT
2007) that it was “proud to embrace all individuals from all political parties.”
This list of key themes is based on factors commonly referred to in a range of writings considering the determinants of state
capacity in weak and vulnerable (including post-conflict) states. These include Migdal (1988); Rotberg (2002a, 2002b, 2003);
Collier et al. (2003); Collier et al. (2006); Court et al. (2002); and Kohl et al. (2006).
In the case of Timor-Leste one might more correctly think about the development of a post-subsistence economy.
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Since coming into government, and especially since the shooting of President José RamosHorta on 11 February 2008, the AMP government has initiated a significant public spending
program, which is claimed to have created around 31,000 full-time jobs by the end of 2008.37 The
program has also included “public transfer programs,” including pensions to veterans and vulnerable
groups and the distribution of subsidized rice on a large scale.
As organizations central to the 2006 crisis, F-FDTL and the Polícia Nacional de TimorLeste (PNTL, or Timorese National Police) are of major importance. Concerning the former, it is of
note that the CNRT resistance council originally planned no armed force for the new state.
However, the militia violence of 1999 and subsequent incursions during the transitional period
influenced a change of policy that was probably a serious mistake, as much as it may have seemed
valid at the time. Referred to by Hicks (2007, p. 13) as “a miniscule army that serves no purpose,” FFDTL has already threatened the state it was formed to protect. Before his violent death in 2008 in
(unknown) connection with the near-fatal shooting of the RDTL President, the late Major Alfredo
Reinado demonstrated the risks of establishing a military in a state in which traditional and resistance
power patterns endure. Evocative of past freedom fighters, Reinado developed popularity among
pro-western or anti-FRETILIN gangs, demonstrating the continuing niche in Timor-Leste for an
armed hero in the mountains who threatens to bring down the government.
Some years after the 2006 crisis, security remains a cause for concern. Despite positive
observations concerning the commitment of present F-FDTL Head Taur Matan Ruak to a
democratically controlled defense force and the existence of good relations between present
government leaders and senior defense personnel, Harris and O’Neil (2010, p. 7) suggest that a
future change of government could potentially see “senior F-FDTL personnel questioning or
refusing to comply with specific instructions from a post-Gusmão government.” Meanwhile, Peak
(2009, pp. 231–232) refers to concerns about the “degree of apparent impunity within the
uniformed services,” noting that as the post-2006 international presence begins to diminish, FFDTL officers found guilty of committing crimes in 2006 “remain in uniform,” despite having been
convicted and sentenced to terms of imprisonment. Similarly, the government is reported (Wilson
2010, pp. 4–5) to have merely paid “lip service” to professional development initiatives concerning
PNTL, before disregarding “these policies... [and continuing]... to appoint uncertified officers to
ranks they have not rightly attained.”
More generally, after being characterized by confusion, failure to address local language
needs, coordination oversights, lack of engagement by local actors, unsuitably qualified and skilled
foreign advisors, and drifting focus (Peak 2009, pp. 226–230), the security sector review that was so
central to the post-2006 crisis United Nations Integrated Mission in East Timor mandate is reported
(Wilson and Nélson 2009, p. 4) to have “not occurred, and there is a general consensus that it will
not occur.” Unfortunately, these various developments suggest that the security sector retains the
potential to contribute to Timor-Leste becoming a “temporarily broken state”38 on future occasions.
Democracy and Governance
Excluding public administration and accountability aspects (addressed below), a key consideration
concerns the extent to which multi-party democracy is being accepted in Timor-Leste, in an
37
38
See Gusmão (2009a, p. 5), in which elements of this program are outlined. Note that direct public service appointments may
not account for all of the 31,000 full-time jobs referred to by Gusmão as, according to Blunt, public service positions in 2008
numbered only 24,000.
As Timor-Leste UN Chief Sukehiro Hasegawa referred to the country following the 2006 instability.
Timor-Leste
241
environment where the petroleum income raises stakes for political players. The violence that broke
out following the 6 August 2007 announcement that CNRT had been invited to form government
indicates that no peaceful acceptance of multi-party democracy prevailed on that occasion. 39 One
might reasonably speculate that this violence may have been far worse had no international security
presence been in Timor-Leste at the time.
An initiative that could either improve or further complicate what Hicks (2007, p. 13)
refers to as the “dysfunctional relationship between the capital, Dili, and the rest of the country” is
the municipal governance program based on Section 5 of the Constitution (RDTL 2002) on
decentralization. Concerns about how to staff an additional level of administration are valid, given
the need to overcome capacity deficiencies that continue to reduce the effectiveness of existing tiers
of government. In Shoesmith’s analysis (2010, p. 5), the program has the potential to “close the gap
between the government and the people,” yet in a worst-case scenario it may simply “impose another
layer of potentially inert bureaucracy and patronage politics over and above local communities.” A
further possibility, suggested by the lack of momentum in legislative development, is that the
program will be delayed indefinitely.
Concerning the role of the media in strengthening democracy and governance, a 2006 UN
study (Cheema et al. 2006, p. 49) found the media to have “limited reach and capacity” and that
“press reporting is variable but of generally low quality, reflecting a lack of capacity and experience
among journalists.” Cheema et al. (2006, p. 48) also noted that only a limited number of civil society
organizations have the capacity to meaningfully contribute to the policy development process. While
this assessment may remain generally valid, positive developments include the establishment of a new
security-sector monitoring organization, Fundasaun Mahein. 40 Probably the most encouraging
example of local critical analysis is the Tempo Semanal publication (now supplemented by a blog and
regular audiovisual footage) 41 produced by José Belo and his team and known for its regular
reporting on corruption issues (Tempo Semanal 2008 and Kearney 2009).
Public Administration, Accountability, and Justice
For the reasons discussed earlier, Timor-Leste inherited a skills deficit at independence. While the
state now has the resources to send people overseas to study, and while the quality of vocational
training programs appears to be improving, it will take many years to overcome the skill shortages.
Introducing Portuguese as a language of public administration and education has added a further
hurdle to the development of a functional public administration. Additionally, the renewal of the
public administration workplace culture is likely to be a slow process and one that may not happen
in the absence of determined action, probably involving external actors.
Blunt (2009, pp.90, 94) notes that “traditional beliefs in patronage” threaten administrative
outcomes in Timor-Leste, which raises the risk of replicating the mixed “rational–legal”/patronagebased governance model common in other developing countries. A 2004 analysis of the
administrative workings of the National Directorate of Land and Property undertaken by the writer
39
40
41
At that time, a FRETILIN spokesperson responded to a series of queries concerning FRETILIN’s possible involvement in the
violence by denying that FRETILIN was responsible (Fitzpatrick 2007a), at the same time issuing ominous warnings (Callinan
2007) that the party could no longer control its supporters.
Fundasaun Mahein website. http://fundasaunmahein.wordpress.com/
Tempo Semanal website. http://temposemanaltimor.blogspot.com
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identified the ad hoc and unsystematic nature in which duties were allocated to staff as a major
obstacle to be overcome to enable the directorate to meet its mandated obligations. 42
Concerning transparency, UN Anticorruption Specialist Shane Cave 43 points out that it is
often difficult to measure corruption in weak states due to the absence of auditing institutions.
Ironically, one may find more empirical evidence of corruption in highly transparent states simply
through the existence of functioning auditing institutions. On this basis, Timor-Leste has provided a
suitable habitat for corruption to date as it has lacked “any independent audit agency to keep track of
government expenditure” (Cave 2009, p. 4). While the government is now in the process of
establishing a High Administrative, Tax, and Audit Court (HATAC), the effectiveness of HATAC
has yet to be proven. 44
Alongside HATAC, other institutions meant to promote accountability in Timor-Leste
45
include (i) the Civil Service Commission, which has already been established and is responsible for
standards pertaining to recruitment, discipline, and performance; (ii) the Office of the Inspector
General, which is tasked with investigative and auditing responsibilities; (iii) the Prosecutor General;
and (iv) the Anti-Corruption Commission, which is designed to have both preventative and
investigative functions and, like HATAC, is in the process of being established. Given the small size
of Timor-Leste, this is a considerable number of pro-accountability institutions and it could well
prove too many. Cave (2009, p. 8) highlights that the institutions are mandated with overlapping
functions, and where overlap exists, this “allows agencies to seek to avoid difficult or complex cases
and argue that another agency is responsible,” thereby wasting time and delaying outcomes. 46
While the data collection process on corruption may be unsystematic, Timor-Leste is
certainly not perceived as being transparent or as improving in transparency. In their 2009
corruption perception index, Transparency International (2009) ranked Timor-Leste 146 (with
Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe) out of 180 rankings. This was a slide from the 2007 ranking of 130 out
of 180 countries surveyed (Transparency International 2007, p. 6). Moreover, it is difficult to
imagine anything will improve in Timor-Leste without a fundamental shift in the government’s
approach to transparency and accountability. Without serious commitment, new transparency
institutions may achieve little more than provide jobs and new opportunities for corruption and
wastage.
Concerning justice, whereas the justice system was the earliest agency to be “Timorized”
during the UNTAET period, the sector has been recognized as “the weakest branch of Timor-Leste’s
governance architecture” (World Bank 2006, p. 19). Although the level of resources available to the
sector was soon identified as a “central problem” (Beauvais 2001, pp. 1155–1156), it is clear that the
capacity of the new judiciary has also proved to be a serious obstacle. Recruited by means of an aerial
leaflet drop in the early days of UNTAET (Strohmeyer 2001, p. 54), the new judiciary lacked the
experience to provide the basis of a courts system. Although the new judiciary were to receive on-the42
43
44
45
46
In particular, ministers from other ministries were found to routinely direct staff members to undertake tasks without
channeling their requests through the appropriate minister (of justice). Unshielded from a host of ad hoc requests, there was
little chance of staff systematically pursuing official activities.
Interviewed in Dili (November 2009).
As outlined in Section 129 of the Constitution (RDTL 2002), HATAC is responsible for monitoring “the lawfulness of public
expenditure and to audit state accounts.”
Based on an overview of the sector prepared by Cave (2009, p. 4).
Additionally, Cave (2009, p. 8) points out the inefficiencies associated with multiple agencies requiring resources to undertake
the same tasks—an approach likely to prove unrealistic given the limited number of East Timorese with appropriate
investigative and auditing skills. Organizations including CPA (Certified Practicing Accountants) Australia have been
endeavoring to train Timor-Leste students in accounting skills and these efforts should be encouraged.
Timor-Leste
243
job legal training, their task of learning the law and administering justice in an under-resourced
environment was made even more difficult by the use of the Portuguese language within the justice
sector. The difficulties facing the state justice sector were highlighted when it was announced in
January 2005 that all 22 East Timorese judges had failed their evaluations after a 5-year training and
probationary period. 47
There are broader questions about the Timor-Leste justice system that both Timor-Leste
citizens and development partners supporting the justice system should be engaging with vigorously.
If the government fails to demonstrate a robust commitment to tackling corruption—for example,
by investigating and prosecuting ministers suspected of granting contracts to family members and
associates, or state officials suspected of benefiting from the rental of state properties—one might
legitimately question how serious the government is about accountability. Although the government
announced a new campaign of “transparency and accountability” to commence in 2010 (Pereira
2010a; Gusmão 2009b, p. 7), little may change unless Timor-Leste’s leaders are presented with some
compelling incentives or “levers” by outside actors.
4. Rural Change: Obstacles, Opportunities and Levers
The Two Economies of Timor-Leste
Several features stand out in relation to the Timor-Leste economy. First, there is the recent high level
of economic growth, proudly reported (Gusmão 2009b, p. 7) to be the second highest rate of growth
in the world (at over 12%) in 2008. 48 A second feature is the ranking of Timor-Leste in the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP) human development index, with Timor-Leste placed
120 of the 169 countries included in the 2010 index (UNDP 2010, p. 145) and 162 of 182
countries included in the 2009 index (UNDP 2009). These figures reflect the two main economies
of Timor-Leste: the public sector, which is dependent on petroleum royalties, and the almost
stagnant rural economy.
The Public Sector Petroleum Economy
The Timor-Leste public sector is presently almost completely dependent on petroleum wealth. Based
on treaty arrangements negotiated with Australia, Timor-Leste’s Petroleum Fund accrues payments
from one main production field, Bayu Undan. 49 The Petroleum Fund manages petroleum income,
and while it is unable to guarantee that the nation’s oil wealth will not be squandered, is a respected
model. As Le Lievre (2007, p. 89) has noted, however, East Timor’s dependence on only one field
“poses serious risk in the event of disrupted production.” Although reserves from a further large field,
Greater Sunrise, are ultimately likely to provide substantial additional revenues, it is uncertain when
this field will be developed.
According to the Ministry of Finance (MOF), the estimated sustainable income (ESI) from
the Petroleum Fund was calculated at $502 million for 2010 (MOF 2009, p. 7) with the overall
value of the fund estimated at $6.62 billion at the end of 2010 (MOF 2010, p. 9). For 2010, a
budget of $660 million was originally approved, of which $502 million would be sourced from the
47
48
49
Following that announcement, all probationary judges were barred from work in the district courts, reducing the number of
qualified judges to four internationals and raising questions about the legality of cases that had already been processed.
Gusmão (2009b, p. 7) also announced that “[t]his positive record continued in 2009, with a forecast growth rate of between 7
and 8%.” See also Ministry of Finance (MOF 2009, pp. 6, 19).
Bayu Undan is located within the Joint Petroleum Development Area in the Timor Sea to the southeast of East Timor.
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Petroleum Fund (Pereira 2009; MOF 2009, p. 41; and Gusmão 2009b, p. 11. Of the remainder,
$70.6 million was projected to be sourced from reserves and $87.3 million from non-petroleum or
domestic revenue. 50 In May 2010, a “budget rectification” was announced (Pereira 2010b) aimed at
supporting “faster national development... to increase the general welfare.” Based on additional
withdrawals from the Petroleum Fund, this rectification increased the planned 2010 budget to $838
million and raised concerns about unsustainable management of the Petroleum Fund (La’o Hamutuk
Bulletin 2010).
In fact, due to “a change of methodology of the ESI calculation,” government budget
predictions increased between 2009 and 2010. Whereas in 2009 the government referred (MOF
2009, p. 35) to future budgets comprised of around $100 million sourced from domestic revenues
plus $500 million sourced from the Petroleum Fund, the 2011 state budget paper (MOF 2010, pp.
1, 9, 36) refers to a General State Budget (excluding donor contributions) of $985 million, of which
$734 million (the revised ESI) is to be sourced from the Petroleum Fund, $110 million from
domestic revenue, and $141 million from government funds held in the Consolidated Fund of
Timor-Leste. Although government figures (MOF 2010, p. 14, Table 4.2) indicate that the 2011
budget will not require withdrawals from the Petroleum Fund in excess of the ESI, this is not the
case for the years 2012 to 2015, for which years it is planned to withdraw over $400 million per year
in excess of the ESI. Recent budgetary developments, therefore, include not only revision of the
means of calculating the ESI but also plans to source budgetary contributions from the Petroleum
Fund in excess of revised levels. Government information (MOF 2010, p. 30) indicates that priority
areas include infrastructural and human capital development, for which Special Funds will be
financed through the budget beginning in 2011. Additionally, the government is reported to be
“exploring other options... [for]... funding strategic public investments,” including public–private
partnerships and loans (MOF 2009, p. 35). As discussed later, this appears to provide an opening for
leverage by development partners, however the growth of the Petroleum Fund and the apparent
willingness of the government to make “judicious” withdrawals from it to finance special projects
may erode this potential in due course.
The challenge in Timor-Leste is to link its two economies to ensure, through an
environment of transparency, accountability, and prudence, that the nation’s petroleum wealth
contributes to the development of infrastructure and skill levels that will help take the broader
economy beyond subsistence. Ideally, such economic transformation will ultimately present the
option of a tax base to support the public sector and reduce dependence on petroleum royalties. For
these reasons, much attention has been given to the design and management of Timor-Leste’s
Petroleum Fund and to the challenge of avoiding the corruption and violent conflict sometimes
experienced by countries with rich natural resources but few other areas of post-subsistence economic
endeavor (Whittlesey and Moore 2003, p. 5; Cutter et al. 2004, p. 14; and World Bank 2006, p. 5).
While there are many positive dimensions to the Petroleum Fund, vulnerabilities have been
identified. Le Lievre (2007, pp. 95–96) notes that despite the legislation requiring the government to
explain appropriations to Parliament, “there is no actual floor establishing an amount below which
the fund cannot fall.” 51 Accordingly, as with the broader area of “democracy and governance”
50
51
Doubt has been expressed (La’o Hamutuk Bulletin 2009, pp. 9–10) about the ability of the Timor-Leste government to raise
even 13% of the national budget from domestic revenues, especially given recent tax reforms. Note that the AMP government
implemented tax reforms in 2008 (MOF 2009, p. 21), reducing both business and individual taxation.
See also the commentary of the World Bank (2006, p. 4), which notes that “weaknesses in national capacity make the system
vulnerable in the face of the [eventual] departure of international advisors.” Realistically, the only means of establishing a “floor”
to the Petroleum Fund would have been through an international trusteeship model.
Timor-Leste
245
discussed earlier, prudent use of the fund is likely to depend on the judgement exercised by
parliamentarians and the extent to which this is scrutinized by the Petroleum Fund Consultative
Council, 52 the media, and civil society more generally. As already discussed, the Petroleum Fund is
only one (albeit major) area subject to the risks of mismanagement and corruption, since there is also
the challenge of ensuring that funds legitimately and transparently withdrawn from the fund are
managed so that they speed the development of the country.
The Rural Economy
As outlined earlier, very little post-subsistence economic development has occurred in rural TimorLeste throughout the various chapters of the territory’s history. Notwithstanding the production of
coffee and, on a more limited scale, the production of cash crops including candle nuts, peanuts,
maize, mungbeans, green beans, and copra, the majority of rural farmers in Timor-Leste rely mainly
on subsistence crops for their livelihoods. 53 The traditional nature of the rural economy is
highlighted by land tenure field data indicating that only around 47,000 ha of primary industry land
in rural areas has been alienated from customary tenure. Much of this land is presently unmanaged. 54
Whereas comparable countries in the southwest Pacific continue to enjoy “subsistence
affluence,” this is not the case in Timor-Leste with its relatively high population density, high rate of
population growth, non-volcanic soils, and dry climate. The lapar biasa (usual hunger period) has
long been known on parts of the island of Timor (Ormelling 1957) and food shortages remain
common, especially between November and February. According to the Ministry of Economy and
Development (MED), survey data from 2007 indicates that 40% of households “are either food
insecure, or are living below [the] poverty line” (MED 2008, p. 16; see also, Young et al. 2010, p.
24). Meanwhile, the broader rural economy, as described in a 2009 government discussion paper
(RDTL 2009a, pp. 6–9), is characterized by “small markets, high costs, low skill base, poor physical
infrastructure and incomplete legal institutions.” 55
The pace of rural development in Timor-Leste has frustrated some. President José RamosHorta has lamented provocatively that either the citizens of Timor-Leste must be the most stupid
people on earth or they must have the services of the most stupid consultants on earth—or the
52
53
54
55
The Petroleum Fund Consultative Council (PFCC) was established under Chapter 5 of the Petroleum Fund Law (RDTL 2005,
pp. 12–15) as a measure designed to ensure that “appropriations of the Petroleum Fund are being used effectively to the benefit
of current and future generations.” Comprised of national citizens including former presidents, prime ministers, finance
ministers, central bank heads, business, religious and civil society representatives, and others, the council is required (RDTL
2005b, p. 14) to “consult widely in the community... and... hold an annual forum on issues relating to the Petroleum Fund.”
Notably, however, the council is an advisory body only.
MED documentation states (2008, p. 5) that “more than 50% [of rural households] engage in subsistence farming producing
no saleable surplus and generating no off-farm income. Fewer than 50% produce a modest saleable surplus, mainly coffee, rice,
vegetables and/or fruit, chicken, pigs, eggs, fish and other grains.”
State primary industry land—including around 12,000–13,000 ha of coffee plantations, around 15,000 ha of
transmigration/translocation land, and around 14,000 ha of state forest land—represents the great majority of land that has
been technically alienated from customary tenure, and the field data suggest that only around 66% of it is managed. Perhaps
not surprisingly, the great majority of private (including church-owned) primary industry land (totaling less than 4,000 ha) was
found to be managed. For further information, see Nixon (2005). Note that at around 3% of total land area, this proportion is
roughly equivalent to the amount of land alienated from other “subsistence states” in the region. Larmour (1998, p. 81) refers
to 17% of land in Fiji, 16% in Solomon Islands, 2% in Papua New Guinea, and 1% in Vanuatu. Note that in the case of
Vanuatu, it would appear (though data is not easily available) that a significant proportion of customary land is under long-term
(up to 75 years) lease.
In addition to the limited skills of farmers, identified rural development bottlenecks (RDTL 2009a, p. 9) include the difficulty
of accessing credit, markets, and modern cultivation and processing supplies and technologies (from fertilizers and irrigation
systems to processing equipment).
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unfortunate combination of both. 56 As outlined by the UN Socio-Economic Affairs Unit (UN
2010), a response to the slow pace of change by government “in 2009 has been to pump cash out to
the communities, for boosting business and the private economy.” And yet, as noted in the same
report, “many MPs [members of Parliament], politicians, and [c]ivil [s]ociety [g]roups have stated
that the 2009 Budget Execution is not realistic as it had no impact on people’s lives.”
Clearly, rapid, uncontrolled spending will not substitute for systematic and targeted
expenditure, but the latter has proved challenging. Of course, the lack of progress is less surprising
given the disruption to development programs and governance expansion that occurred in
connection with the 2006 political crisis, only 4 years into independence. This fact highlights the
great importance of meaningful security sector reform, not yet achieved, to ensure that the
momentum of rural development is not interrupted. Whereas few substantive advances in addressing
rural poverty and economic stagnation may have been made, important areas of rural development
include developing rural infrastructure, increasing the productivity of subsistence crops, improving
the skill levels of farmers, and advancing post-subsistence agricultural production.
Infrastructure Development
Infrastructure, with particular emphasis on roads and water supplies, headed the national priorities
list for 2010 (MOF 2009, p. 40). 57 The 6,000-kilometer (km) national road network has received
little maintenance since Indonesian times; 58 more than half the “core network” is considered to be in
“poor or very poor” condition. District and rural roads in particular are in “very poor” condition
with poor drainage and other features making them “largely unmaintainable in their present state”
(RDTL 2009b, p. 15). 59 Many parts of the country are accessible only with great difficulty in the wet
season, including much of the country’s important coffee region. Meanwhile, only 55% of the rural
population is estimated to have access to “an improved water source” and only 20% to electricity
(RDTL 2009b, pp. 15–16, 34). In rural centers, power is often available only at night, presenting
particular difficulties for electricity-dependent, value-adding businesses such as carpentry shops.
The government is well aware of the extent to which poor infrastructure contributes to
economic stagnation and the risk of future instability (MOF 2009, p. 35), yet infrastructural
development has proved challenging with the Ministry of Infrastructure attracting criticism for
budget execution levels of below 50% (Tempo Semanal 2010; and UN 2010). 60 Attempts to make up
for low budget execution have included the 2009 $70 million “Referendum Package” of rapid public
works projects. This has attracted criticism (Tempo Seminal 2009a) for bypassing important
accountability processes, including approval from the National Parliament. Noting that the
“Government’s technical capacity to deliver good projects that create thousands of jobs and improve
public services is not proven until now,” the UN (2010) refers to the Referendum Package as “an
example of creating jobs, but unfortunately the money goes to the companies’ pockets with low
quality of projects as a result.”
56
57
58
59
60
President Ramos-Horta’s opening speech at the MED conference on Sustainable Rural Development for Poverty Reduction
held on 27–28 March 2009 (and attended by the writer).
The remaining development priorities for 2010 (MOF 2009, p. 40) are “Food Security (agricultural productivity),” “Human
Resources Training,” “Access to Justice,” “Social Services and Administrative Decentralization,” “Good Governance,” and
“Public Security.”
Note that donors (mostly the Asian Development Bank) have allocated $78 million to roads projects (RDTL 2009b, p. 19).
According to the Strategic Framework for Rural Development (RDTL 2009, p. 14), no “approved design standards” exist in
relation to rural roads.
Note that the data supporting this conclusion is derived from financial quarters one to three of 2009.
Timor-Leste
247
Earlier government figures (MOF 2009, pp. 35–37) estimated that around $600 million
per annum would be needed to support the administrative apparatus but that sustainable revenues
would not allow for spending on other “immediate needs of the nation” including “national priority”
infrastructure projects. Noting that “donor funds have been shrinking since 2002,” 61 the government
indicated (MOF 2009, p. 37) it had been talking with Portugal and the People's Republic of China
about the possibility of a $3 billion loan to support infrastructure projects. No loan is understood to
have been secured as yet, but the possibility of using future loans to fund “strategic public
investments” continues to receive mention in government budget documents (MOF 2010, p. 30).
Accordingly, the provision of sizeable loans (probably not $3 billion given prevailing expenditure
bottlenecks) by donors at attractive rates could present development partners with a means of
leveraging improvements in government expenditure approaches and quality control processes.
Food Security and Productivity
Agricultural productivity in Timor-Leste is considered “very low by world and regional standards,”
with food crop yields around 20% to 35% of those achieved across a range of Asian countries. 62
Factors contributing to this low productivity include minimal rotation of crops, limited technical
knowledge of farmers, and lack of access to high-yield varieties and inputs such as fertilizer (Young et
al. 2010, p. 15). The low level of productivity is exacerbated by post-harvest losses stemming from
poor food storage practices (MED 2008, p. 17). Initiatives including the Australian Agency for
International Development (AusAID)–supported Seeds of Life project 63 are playing an important
role in promoting improved-yield staple crops, yet the outlook remains critical. Although some
analysis (MED 2008, p. 33) has predicted that levels of productivity will increase, it is also expected
that production increases will “be outpaced by the high population growth... expected to occur in the
medium term.” Other analysis (Young et al. 2010, p. 2) suggests an even more dire scenario,
asserting based on data from 2000 to 2007 that “no significant increases in food production”
occurred over that time.64
Questions about infrastructure spending have also been raised in connection with the
agriculture sector, reflecting the criticism of the rice self-sufficiency policy articulated by Soesastro
(1989, pp. 222–228) during the Indonesian period. As demonstrated by Young et al. (2010, Policy
Note 1, p. 2), government agricultural spending since 2005 has been heavily biased toward the
promotion of irrigated production. For 2009, it is asserted that of a total Ministry of Agriculture and
Fisheries (MAF) 65 budget of $34 million, no less than $26 million was allocated to irrigation
rehabilitation, green fields projects, and tractors for irrigated rice-related work. 66 On the basis of
their analysis, these authors (Young et al. 2010, p. 4) argue that “large investments in irrigation
rehabilitation do not produce adequate economic returns, only benefit small numbers of farmers and
61
62
63
64
65
66
As outlined in the budget paper (MOF 2009, p. 35), “[a]fter ten years of reconstruction and other priorities in other parts of
the world, Timor-Leste can no longer rely on development partners to finance its development activities.”
According to Young et al. (2010, p. 15), food crop production in 2007 approximated 70,000 tons of maize, 50,000 tons of
cassava, 45,000 tons of rice, and 34,000 tons of sweet potato. See also RDTL (2009b, pp. 12–14).
Seeds of Life official website: www.seedsoflifetimor.org/. Note that the project pays particular attention to maize, rice, sweet
potato, cassava, and peanuts.
Young et al. refer to the International Monetary Fund and Food and Agriculture Organization data.
The reference to forestry was removed from the name of this ministry in the period following the 2007 change of government.
This apparently included $16 million spent on 1,260 hand tractors and 200 larger tractors. Note that Young et al. (2010, p. 3)
indicate that the total level of expenditure was associated with the goal of expanding the area of paddy under cultivation from
31,000 ha to 45,000 ha.
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
may not be sustainable.” 67 Furthermore, as noted by Young et al. (2010, p. 6), the large-scale
investment in irrigation infrastructure is inconsistent with the rice subsidy policy that has been
implemented by the AMP government “because of its distorting effect on producers’ incentives.”
Whereas Soesastro (1989, pp. 222–228) urged more attention to estate crops, livestock, and
other areas of comparative advantage, Young et al. suggest (2010, pp. 6–7) a “more balanced
approach” with greater attention to “a broader mix of upland crops and livestock production, and
selective investments in and support for the irrigated rice sector.” 68 This approach should focus on
generating increased productivity of key staple crops and livestock though the expanded transfer of
such improvements as high-yield varieties. The means for delivering this transfer, meanwhile, should
build on the existing MAF extension program, including the 400 agricultural extension workers
stationed throughout the sucos. While Timor-Leste undoubtedly needs a more balanced approach to
agricultural development, it is not yet clear that MAF, given present organizational realities, can
provide the necessary transfer of technology. Also, while gradual improvements in subsistence crops
have played a role in increasing human carrying capacity on Timor throughout history, it remains
uncertain whether increasing the yield of subsistence crops alone will prove sufficient to absorb the
growing numbers of youth seeking work. These issues receive attention below.
Agricultural Extension
In considering the possibility of the Timor-Leste civil service achieving outcomes of any kind, the
obstacles discussed above under public administration, accountability, and justice must be treated
seriously. Obstacles to better public administration are not confined to the areas of resources and
capacity; this reality is demonstrated in the recollection of a section meeting of the new Timor-Leste
civil service attended by a World Bank staff member who worked for the UN before independence.
At this meeting, a widely supported view was expressed to the effect that those who had fought for
independence and now worked in the public service were owed a rest, and the task of building the
state should be the work of their children. Although recent recruits to programs such as the MAF
extension service may be members of a younger generation, it is unlikely they will be motivated to
perform well in the absence of committed leadership from more senior-level public servants.
According to government documentation (MED 2008, p. 15), “MAF has identified human
resources limitations, their capacity and deployment, and the lack of an effective performance
monitoring system as major constraints to MAF’s ability to implement its high priority programs in
the field and services to farmers in a timely manner.” The Rural Development Framework (RDTL
2009, p. 27) makes reference to the possibility of involving private sector organizations (including
nongovernment organizations) in the delivery of extension services, and this should be strongly
encouraged by donors. In particular, an independently audited, performance-based extension service
could provide a means of overcoming the inertia and lack of adherence to authority structures that
67
68
In relation to the question of sustainability, Young et al. (2010, pp. 6–7) express concern that “the lack of technical capacity in
MAF increases the probability of inappropriate scheme design and poor production quality.” This concern is all the more valid
given the limited extent to which communities have contributed to the maintenance of irrigation systems in the past (MAFF
2004, p. 4).
Young et al. (2010, p. 4) support improved management of existing irrigation systems but not the construction of new ones.
More generally, they suggest that due to factors including the lack of water users associations, smaller irrigation projects are
likely to be more sustainable and economically viable than larger ones.
Timor-Leste
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prevails within the civil service, and provide a model for other critical areas of service throughout
government. 69
Private Sector Involvement in Rural Development
In addition to donor-supported agricultural projects70 and the weak MAF extension service, private
sector involvement could play an important role in advancing primary industry outcomes in rural
areas and the development of a value-adding sector, thereby contributing to increased cash incomes
and reduced rural–urban drift. The importance of the post-subsistence development of the rural
sector is highlighted by the emerging youth “spike” in the national demographic pattern. Specifically,
data from 2007 (MOF 2008, p. 16, Table 1.1) indicates that those aged 19 or younger make up
more than 50% of the rural population (males: 55.1%; females: 53.2%).
The private sector remains exceptionally weak (for example, RDTL 2009b, pp. 12–13).
Estimated to be providing an additional 400 new jobs annually, it is unknown how either the rural
economy or the urban economy will be able to absorb the estimated 12,000 to 15,000 new entrants
to the job market every year (RDTL 2009b, p. 5). 71 While the challenge is enormous, it also presents
another lever to development partners, as the government’s interest in the participation of Timorese
citizens in offshore labor programs is well known.
Given the weak regulatory environment and limited use of contracts for agricultural
production and leasing of land (discussed below), advancing the rural economy will prove
challenging. Irregular decisions by government officials—at times appearing to verge on the
criminal—provide further disincentives and have to date provided few assurances to prospective
investors. 72 Political risk has also historically been an obstacle to investment, as exemplified by the
case of a company interested in investing up to $30 million in plantation forestry, but which ceased
evaluation activities in mid-2006 because of the political and security crisis. 73 Yet another illustration
of security sector reform’s (SSR) importance to rural development, this example raises the question
of whether development partners could link increased government commitment to SSR to more
comprehensive political risk coverage for domestic and international investors.
Research conducted in 2009 into Timor-Leste’s small agribusiness sector highlights the
minimal extent to which agricultural intensification and private sector investment characterize the
present economy (Nixon 2009). Although a handful of positive examples of engagement between
investors and community members can be identified, these initiatives probably amount to no more
69
70
71
72
73
Earlier proposals for private sector involvement in agricultural development activities in Timor-Leste (including extension) have
attracted criticism (Anderson 2003, pp. 7–13) on the basis that public organizations elsewhere have played valuable roles.
Anderson cites the example of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organisation. However, for the reasons
outlined in section 3 on public administration, accountability, and justice, the writer believes that the differences in capacity
and reach between established states such as Australia and new subsistence states such as Timor-Leste must be acknowledged.
For additional discussion on this area, see also Gunn (2003).
For a summary of donor-funded rural development projects, see RDTL (2009b, p. 19).
As noted in the report from a major 2009 rural development workshop (Soges S.p.A. 2009, p. 12), the alternative to “skills
training and permanent employment... for skilled workers in rural areas” is increasing pressure on land and “a continuous
growth of rural poverty, feeding a growing pool of unemployed, and mostly unemployable urban poor.”
A 2009–2010 case involving land leased by the Ministry of Justice (which has responsibility for land and property) to the Dili
International School (DIS) provides cause for concern to any prospective foreign investor. A letter of complaint to the RDTL
President (DIS 2010) asserts that the school’s lease was not recognized by MAF, which occupied the land in defiance of the
lease. According to the school, representatives of the minister of agriculture and fisheries intimidated students and issued death
threats against school staff.
This company, New Forests Pty Ltd, intended to operate in accordance with Forest Stewardship Council guidelines
(www.fscus.org).
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than a few hundred hectares of operations. Notably, some involve organic certification schemes that
appear to successfully bond investors and farmers in a mutually beneficial relationship, based upon
the premium that investors can pay for produce from areas for which they have arranged organic
certification. 74 However, the great majority of private sector actors are engaged largely in competing
for shares of the limited—and according to some reports, dwindling—harvest of available cash crops,
with very little investment in the expansion of crops or the improvement of crop quality.
The coffee industry is one example of where investors could play a major role, alongside
donor-funded projects, in increasing local cash incomes—potentially quadrupling it.75 As the largest
cash crop and non-oil export by far, the coffee industry is estimated to involve around 50,000
families, representing about 30% of the population (World Bank 2009). However, major issues
prevail concerning crop quality, the need for rehabilitation, continued use of traditional cultivation
methods, and low productivity. 76 Whereas industry actors refer to the possibility of quadrupling
production through management improvements, suitable models for engagement between investors
and communities still have to be refined. To date, the nature of the free-for-all Timor-Leste coffee
market has presented difficulties to investors wishing to invest in rehabilitation activities. In the
absence of a contract culture and land tenure formalities, investors have had little confidence they
would have priority purchase rights to improved crops following their investment in rehabilitation. 77
As a possible means of addressing the situation, Chapter V of a draft Land Law prepared for
government with donor assistance, has provisions for a negotiation and regulation regime for areas of
community land (referred to as “community protection zones”) aimed at supporting engagement
between investors and communities from which all parties benefit. Also, the Strategic Framework for
Rural Development proposes an initiative aimed at rural land titling to create the conditions for
increased investment in land and productivity by smallholders (RDTL 2009b, p. 28; see also World
Bank 2009, Annex D). It is unknown, however, if or when either of these initiatives will be
implemented.
Sustainable Regulatory Measures
Senior officials in the current government have signed questionable agreements with international
investors for access to large areas of land for primary industry purposes without any consultation
74
75
76
77
In such instances, farmers sell to the investors out of self interest, even without contracts, as they would not be able to obtain
the same price from another buyer.
In the view of the writer the plantation forestry sector is another example.
Information on coffee quality was sourced from discussions with coffee buyers. For information on present management
practices and the need for rehabilitation, see Deutsch (2004). Note that, characteristically, green bean yields per ha are
estimated to range between 150 kilograms (kg) and 200 kg, which is low by international standards. The crop usually provides
harvests of between 6,000 to 14,000 tons per year (MED 2008, p. 18; World Bank 2009, Annex B).
Commonly at harvest time, the handful of big buyers contract purchasing agents whose role is to purchase as much produce as
possible, with priority on areas known for quality. Independent traders (some under contract to the big buyers) also buy and sell
produce as opportunities present themselves. The nature of the commercial culture is that farmers will sell to those with whom
they have close personal connections (potentially an investor), provided the price paid is the full market rate. Where investors
provide inputs for the intensification of production, they expect priority purchase rights, perhaps at an agreed price. However,
defaults on contract arrangements remain common, such that contract farming does not feature prominently in the rural
economy. The difficulties faced by investors are demonstrated by the experience of Timor Global, Timor-Leste’s largest private
sector agribusiness operator and the exception to the rule about industry actors generally not investing. In 2005, the company
secured a lease for 3,000 ha of coffee estate land from the state. Although the state was technically able to lease the land,
formerly part of the Sociedade Agricola Pátria e Trabalho in which the Portuguese government had a stake, multiple
smallholders also hold claims and the company soon found that it had to undertake detailed negotiations with members of the
local population before it could begin work; hence by early 2010 the company had rehabilitated only around 50 ha.
Timor-Leste
251
with community members in potentially affected areas. 78 The intense scrutiny from international
nongovernment organizations and other agencies in Timor-Leste is likely to present serious obstacles
to the implementation of projects with negative social and environmental impacts, such as the mass
alienation of subsistence farmers. However, given the state’s limited ability to undertake monitoring
and enforcement activities related to large-scale primary industry developments, development
partners should encourage the state to use the various industry self-regulation schemes that have
developed over the past few decades. Requiring investments in excess of a certain land area or
employee threshold to be regulated by an appropriate industry scheme could help ensure the
realization of minimum social and environmental standards even in the absence of state capacity. 79
4. Opportunities and Levers
A range of obstacles to rural development have been identified in the forgoing analysis. Some of these
obstacles are in the process of being addressed, although outcomes are uncertain at this stage. With
others, there is reason for concern that the obstacle may persist without donor action. This section
summarizes identified obstacles and possible opportunities for action by development partners, and
suggests possible “levers” for change. Where possible, the levers relate to the sector in which an
obstacle arises. Levers are clearer in some cases than others, and a number of additional levers could
be used to encourage reforms in several areas. However, it is important to note that the Timor-Leste
receives petroleum royalties and other income supporting a budget, at least in the short to medium
term, of $1 billion or more per year. Accordingly, there are fewer incentives that can be offered than
there would be under different circumstances.
Security Sector Reform
Meaningful security sector reform (SSR) has not yet happened, notwithstanding the expenditure of
huge resources. There is a risk that renewed conflict could again disrupt the continuity of
government and donor-supported rural development programs, as in 2006, 80 and add to the existing
range of deterrents to private sector investors. Although the risk of further conflict may have been
reduced through increased public spending, the development setbacks that further conflict would
cause mean that SSR remains a leading, albeit challenging, priority. Despite the importance of the
sector, however, experience in Timor-Leste warns against excessive SSR expenditure for limited
returns.
To date, international support for the security sector appears to have been almost
unconditional, despite the slow pace of reforms and the failure of the government to systematically
process those recommended for investigation or prosecution in connection with the 2006 instability.
As of the time of this writing, the international security presence is downscaling, limiting the
potential for levers to be exercised. In the event of future instability, development partners as a
united group should insist on commitment to a clear and defined range of SSR deliverables before
committing to extended operations. Substantial reforms should be considered including
78
79
80
Examples include a 2008 memorandum of understanding between the government and GT Leste Biotech for a renewable 50year lease for 100,000 ha “of unproductive land” (La’o Hamutuk 2008) and a 2009 agreement between the government and
MALTIMOR Lda for a 250,000 ha rubber plantation (Tempo Semanal 2009b).
The industry self-regulation movement has developed to the point where certification schemes are themselves certified by
organizations such as the International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labelling Alliance (www.isealalliance.org).
See Carey and Guttenstein (2008) for an analysis of 10 examples of the use of industry certification programs to promote
government policy.
And also in 1975 and 1999, although the contexts were different in each case.
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disbandment of particular security units. The progress of SSR should be subject to external
monitoring and reporting and benchmarks should be met in order for international support to
continue. Provision of training and equipment may present some opportunities; however, the recent
procurement of patrol boats from the People’s Republic of China highlights the limits to the
bargaining power of established development partners. A more effective strategy may be to provide
greater support to SSR-focussed civil society organizations such as Fundasaun Mahein.
Improving Transparency and Public Sector Management
The indications are that corruption is entrenched and that the corrupt political economy is damaging
rural development outcomes. For this reason, transparency and public sector management is the
second priority. Development partners and close neighbors (including Australia, Indonesia, and
Singapore) should offer strong support to the current Timor-Leste anticorruption campaign and
assist the Anti-Corruption Commission and HATAC in tracing embezzled public funds and freezing
offshore bank accounts and assets, where appropriate. Poor public sector management has been
particularly evident in the key area of rural infrastructure development. Rural infrastructure is poor
and improvement is central to improving trade and investment outcomes, yet there is ample evidence
that much of the infrastructure being constructed is of substandard quality due to inadequate
accountability and quality control. Present practices waste resources on improvements that are
ephemeral and facilitate discretionary payments to contractors.
As discussed in the section on infrastructure development, the government’s interest in
accessing large funds for major works upgrades presents an opportunity for development partners.
Loans at attractive rates could be made available to the government subject to specific conditions.
These conditions should require that the government adopts a new auditing model incorporating
random external auditing both of financial management and quality control dimensions, which
should be applied to all infrastructure projects and potentially in other sectors as well. As noted
earlier, however, the ability of development partners to exert leverage on the government using loans
is likely to be increasingly limited by the growth of the Petroleum Fund and the apparent willingness
of the government (MoF 2010, p. 30) to make “judicious” withdrawals from it to finance special
projects.
Private Sector Investment
There is very little private sector investment in the rural economy and insufficient jobs in rural areas
to accommodate the bulging youth demographic. Private sector development is therefore the third
priority. Perhaps as an overreaction to the low level of investment, senior officials have been inclined
to sign questionable deals involving large areas of land without going through official processes or
consulting potentially affected communities. Broader public sector management and anticorruption
reforms would make the investment environment more predictable and transparent, and the
investment and land policy work that is underway may also help.
Given that investment decisions often bypass official processes, development partners could
work closely with government (subject also to SSR advancement) to design a system where donorsupported political risk insurance is made available to national and international investors willing to
operate in accordance with the requirements of appropriate industry certification programs. 81 The
81
In the case of Timor-Leste, this could involve a joint donor–government project housed within the Invest Timor-Leste unit.
Timor-Leste
253
purpose would be twofold: to stimulate investment in the rural economy and to educate government
officials concerning international best practice and adherence to formal processes.
Agriculture
The analysis highlights the need for a more effective extension service and a broader approach to
agricultural development that pays greater attention to upland farming, estate crops, and livestock.
Experience suggests that much of the investment in irrigation and associated mechanization will be
wasted due to the capacities and priorities of farmers. Accordingly, improvements in the breadth of
agricultural development projects and the efficiency of extension delivery services are the fourth
priority.
It is hoped that rational argument will help broaden current agricultural policy. The
government has a strong interest in accessing programs such as Australia’s Pacific Island Guest
Worker Scheme; participation in such schemes could provide agricultural workers with experience
and knowledge of intensified production systems. Participation could be linked to MAF’s
implementation of a broader agricultural development approach and the use of an externally audited,
private sector agricultural extension model.
Other Opportunities
There are a range of additional levers that could be used to reward or stimulate improved governance
outcomes, especially at the national level. Access to subsidized or reduced-rate education services is
one possibility, given the government’s interest in sending, at its own expense, substantial numbers
of youth to be educated at overseas tertiary institutions. In the long term, given the ongoing
commitments of countries like Australia and New Zealand to peacekeeping and governance in the
region, there may be merit in a new regional organization in the southwest Pacific, which, like the
European Union, extends benefits to members based on the realization of particular reforms. “Super
levers” open to several countries in the region could include offering, in due course, to reopen
negotiations concerning territorial boundaries, subject to specific governance outcomes being
definitively realized. Undoubtedly, all levers are likely to work better if their use is coordinated
among members of the donor community.
5. Conclusion
In over 400 years of Portuguese colonial engagement, there was minimal transformation of the rural
economy in eastern Timor; the exception was the role of the Portuguese in the sizeable, yet poorly
managed, coffee sector. The Indonesians left the legacy of a 6,000 km road network after a quartercentury’s occupation of the territory, yet they failed to bring about profound rural transformation,
despite high rates of growth sustained over a period of years. As an independent country, the
responsibility for advancing economic development outcomes now lies with the government, which
faces nation-building challenges at multiple levels. Advancing the rural economy, one of TimorLeste’s greatest challenges, is important to avoid further increases in poverty and to decrease rural–
urban migration. To achieve this, rural development policies must be well formulated and
implemented efficiently, and without interruption by crises. The stage must also be set to enable the
private sector to play a major role, which means developing regulatory frameworks and controlling
predatory behavior by state officials.
Despite the instability of 2006, the government does not yet appear to have committed to
the reform of the security sector. In failing to control corruption, it also appears to be repeating one
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of the mistakes of the Indonesian administration. Meanwhile, with respect to agricultural policy, it
has been seeking to dramatically increase irrigated rice cultivation in a few areas, generating concern
among some agriculturalists.
The government claims to have commenced major transparency advances, but as Blunt
(2009) warns, this may just be the “rational–legal” rhetoric component of the “rational–
legal”/patrimonial hybrid so common in developing countries. 82 Only when the government begins
to investigate and prosecute will we know it is serious. Given Timor-Leste’s independent petroleum
wealth and the absence of an international trusteeship model such as that proposed by Federer
(2005), there is no easy way for development partners to influence policy. However, using the DOC
approach some levers have been identified for donors to use in helping to bring about the priority
reforms needed to drive change in Timor-Leste.
82
The transparency campaign, for instance, follows very closely the high levels of discretionary spending via the “Referendum
[infrastructural development] Package” discussed under Infrastructural Development.
Timor-Leste
255
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190 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
11 How Pervasive
is Clientelist Politics
in the Pacific?
by Ron Duncan and Graham Hassall 1
ABSTRACT
This study draws upon the economic theory of contracts to measure the extent of clientelism in
Pacific countries and compare their clientelist behavior with that of other countries. The high costs
of enforcing contracts between political incumbents and voters suggest various hypotheses to be
tested. These include behaviors such as (i) an emphasis on targeted transfers to voter groups rather
than the provision of public goods that benefit the wider community; (ii) little interest by politicians
in establishing secure property rights and impartial contract enforcement (the two pillars of market
economies), as doing so undermines the politicians’ ability to create rents and distribute targeted
transfers; and (iii) little interest in making the bureaucracy more efficient, as this also undermines the
politicians’ ability to deliver rents to their voters. Some forms of clientelist behavior are not easy to
measure directly and therefore their measurement necessarily involved arbitrary judgments in
choosing less direct indicators. The evidence assembled suggests that Kiribati, the Federated States of
Micronesia, and Solomon Islands exhibit behavior that is most consistent with that suggested by the
clientelist model. These are also countries with some of the lowest per capita incomes and poorest
economic growth in the Pacific.
1.
Introduction
Democracy is not a shield against predation by the powerful or against governments
exerting their authority to the benefit of elites. Informed citizens, low social
polarization, and political competition are needed. (Zagha et al 2006:9)
It is commonly claimed that in the Pacific, politicians are primarily concerned with their own
interests and give little attention to the national welfare. To this end, they are criticized for directing
state resources to their clans or villages to ensure their election or reelection. Such criticism of the
behavior of incumbents and would-be politicians was essentially the basis for the introduction of the
1
We acknowledge research assistance for this paper that Raijiele Bulatele and Uwe Kaufmann provided.
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
limited preferential voting (LPV) system by Papua New Guinea (PNG) in place of its first-past-thepost voting system. The LPV system had its first full trial in the 2007 general elections. The primary
aim of adopting the LPV system was to force political candidates to appeal to a wider group of voters
(Reilly 2006) and presumably thereby induce them to pay more attention to issues of national
welfare. In other Pacific countries, there is interest in the redesign of election and parliamentary
systems with the same goal in mind.
Countries in which there is an intense political focus on delivering transfers to targeted
constituents to serve narrow interests are identified as clientelist states. The existence of such
relationships between politicians and voters is seen to be economically damaging for many reasons;
for example, because of the diversion of public investment away from the most broadly welfareenhancing avenues, or because of the adverse impacts of “policy capture”—that is, legislating policies
that favor certain groups within the society. 2
Does clientelist politics exist in the Pacific? If so, how widespread is it, and what impacts
does it have on political behavior and economic performance? We examine these questions within
the framework of a model that draws on the economic theory of contracts. 3
Clientelist or patron–client relationships or politics are believed to exist when the only
credible (enforceable) pre-election promises (contracts) that can be made are those between
politicians (patrons) and voters (clients). It is argued that these are the only viable forms of political
contracts because of the high costs of enforcing contracts between political incumbents and voters.
The high costs of enforceability may arise because of the high cost of organizing voters and the need
for repeated, face-to-face interaction between the incumbent and voters to ensure that the voters
indeed voted for the politician and the voters can see that the politician delivered on the promises
made to the voters (that is, establishing “reputation” through repeated exchange overcomes the “time
inconsistency” of the contracts). Predominant features of political behavior derived from this model
of patron–client politics are the following:
„
There is an emphasis on targeted transfers to voter groups rather than the provision of
public goods that benefit the wider community. Targeted transfers can be much more easily
attributed to the political incumbent by the voters. On the other hand, politicians find it
difficult to make credible promises about public goods.
„
There is little interest by politicians in developing a reputation for policy making because of
the difficulty of making credible promises about broad-ranging policies.
„
There is little interest by politicians in establishing secure property rights and impartial
contract enforcement (the two pillars of market economies), or law and order more
generally, as doing so undermines the incumbents’ ability to create rents and distribute
targeted transfers (including nepotism).
„
There is little interest in making the bureaucracy more efficient, as this also undermines the
politicians’ ability to deliver rents to their voters.
„
There is lack of interest in the development of credible political parties, as this would mean
having to develop and deliver on policy platforms.
2
3
Hallerberg (2004) and others refer politely to the “common resource pool” problem: “By their very nature all governments and
parliaments face a coordination issue. The problem arises because benefits to constituencies, interest groups, and political parties
tend to be concentrated, while the costs to be paid for generating benefits are usually spread out more widely than the benefit”
(p. 240).
The seminal publication on the economic theory of contracts is Hart (1995). The analytical framework used here is mainly
drawn from the work of Keefer (2004). However, antecedents of Keefer’s work are Keefer et al. (1996), Dixit and Londregan
(1996), Keefer and Knack (2002), Robinson and Torvik (2002), and Robinson and Verdier (2002).
How Pervasive is Clientelist Politics in the Pacific?
„
„
267
There is little interest in establishing good controls over the expenditure of revenues from
the exploitation of natural resources (e.g., mining, forestry, and fishing), as again this
undermines “rent seizure” and rent distribution.
There is likely to be a high level of incomplete targeted infrastructure projects for two
reasons: incumbents can promise to complete the project if they are reelected, and for newly
elected politicians there is no payoff for completing a project begun by the previous
incumbent who had a different clientele.
If these are the features of clientelist politics, it is obvious that a high incidence of such
behavior would be inimical to economic growth and the enhancement of public welfare. This paper
tests the incidence of clientelist politics in the Pacific by measuring political behavior according to
selected indicators. The kinds of clientelist political behavior listed above are not easy to measure
directly and therefore their measurement necessarily involves arbitrary judgments with respect to the
indicators chosen. Such arbitrary judgments are, of course, open to debate.
2. Indicators of Clientelist Behavior
A major point that arises from the political behavior suggested to predominate in clientelist countries
is that there is an emphasis on targeted transfers rather than on public goods that improve societal
welfare generally. Targeted transfers may be in the form of government investment in infrastructure
that has a narrow set of beneficiaries (for example, a local road, airport, port, or location of a
government business) or a policy (such as a subsidy, a tariff, or a tax concession) that is targeted to a
firm or region. Isolating these decisions from aggregated government statistics is impossible.
However, it is suggested that because “grand corruption” takes place mostly through public
investment, in young democracies where clientelism is more likely, it is reasonable to measure
government expenditure associated with rent seeking and the satisfaction of narrow interests through
the ratio of public investment to GDP (see Tanzi and Davoodi 1997, and Keefer and Knack 2002).
That is, a higher share of public investment in gross domestic product (GDP) is associated with
higher targeted transfers.
Normally, we would think of higher public investment leading to better economic growth.
However, the quality of investment is important. Therefore, if most of the public investment is of
low quality, such as would be expected from investment for targeted transfers (Keefer and Knack
2002), the relationship between public investment and economic growth could well be negative.
Security of property rights may be thought of in two senses. First, there is the sense in which
the state effectively defines the rights to property such as land and buildings and protects the rightsholder against predation by others. In another sense, there is the possibility of predation by the state
itself. How secure do people feel against the likelihood that the state will take their property without
good cause or without appropriate compensation? State appropriation can extend to measures taken
against foreign investors to prevent them from recovering their profits or capital investments.
Enforcement of contracts may be poor because of discretionary behavior exercised by the
government, the bureaucracy, or the courts. Such behavior can lead to a situation where disputation
of contracts becomes pervasive, with the result that there are few contracts entered into or
contracting parties settle disputes privately rather than through the courts.
Capturing and distributing rents is another suggested form of political behavior in clientelist
states. These rents may be “resource rents,” that is, the revenues accruing to the government from its
appropriation of the revenue streams from the exploitation of natural resources such as minerals,
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
forests, and fisheries. Rents may also be created through policies, such as those that establish
monopoly positions within the economy. These “monopoly rents” may be assigned to private sector
interests through the use of import tariffs or other restrictions that raise the costs of imports and
thereby raise the prices of domestically produced goods and services. The prevalence and form of
import restrictions can indicate the creation and distribution of “policy rents” by patron politicians.
The creation of monopolistic government business enterprises (GBEs) can be another
means of creating and distributing monopoly rents. Such enterprises are notorious for nepotism in
employment. Appointments to senior management positions and boards of directors in GBEs also
provide governments with means of rewarding political supporters or of enticing politicians to join
the government (see, for example, Tuhaika, Jr. 2007).
Another behavior suggestive of clientelist states is unwillingness to make the public service
efficient. Public sector reform has been a very popular activity of development assistance agencies in
the Pacific region. 4 Their efforts have met with some success, as in the Cook Islands and Samoa, but
there has been very limited, if any, progress in other Pacific countries such as Fiji and PNG.
Ensuring the efficient operation of markets and effective and equitable operation of public services
through regulation is one of the most important functions of government. However, the dark side to
regulations is that they can also serve as a means of limiting entry to an activity, providing
preferential entry, or extracting a bribe to provide approval under the regulation.
The clientelist behavior suggested by the model and indicators adopted to measure the
extent of clientelist behavior in Pacific states are shown in Table 11.1. Below we discuss possible
indicators and evaluate the appropriateness of the indictors selected.
Targeted Transfers Rather than Investment in Public Goods
As noted above, the share of public investment in GDP is an indirect measure of the extent of
targeted transfers suggested by the political economy models on which this study is based. It is
suggested that in young democracies, the higher the share of public investment in GDP, the greater
the degree of targeted transfers. However, information on public investment (or private investment
for that matter) is not available for most Pacific island countries. Nor is there any information that
could show the extent of targeted transfers. There are also no data on the extent of incomplete
infrastructure projects—although there is much anecdotal evidence of such occurrences in some
Pacific countries—and therefore the hypothesis about clientelism being reflected in unfinished
infrastructure projects cannot be directly tested.
Thus, we looked to measures of expenditure on public goods—the other side of the
equation. The share of health and education expenditure in total government expenditure is taken as
a proxy for state expenditure on public goods, as opposed to targeted transfers. In young
democracies, the share of health and education expenditure in total public expenditure is expected to
be higher the less the extent of targeted transfers.
Public access to essential services can be another proxy for the extent of expenditure on
public goods. An indicator for this proxy was constructed by taking the simple arithmetic average of
the percentages of the population with access to safe water and sanitation.
4
See Asian Development Bank (ADB, 2000) and the ADB (2004) report, Responding to the Priorities of the Poor, which sets out
the ADB strategy for the Pacific member countries for the period 2005–2009, states “… ADB’s studies show that governments
fail to supply key public goods, such as secure property rights, an effective legal system, and critical infrastructure, while
unproductively participating in some markets and poorly managing and preventing competition in others, such as utilities.”
How Pervasive is Clientelist Politics in the Pacific?
269
Insecurity of Property Rights
Information from the World Bank/International Finance Corporation (IFC) Doing Business
database on the extent to which investors are protected was taken as an indicator of the security of
property rights. This indicator measures the quality of corporate governance in a country, which
partially relies upon the government to enforce transparency and accountability within public
companies to try to prevent company managers and directors from acting against shareholder
interests. The Doing Business database has three measures of how well investors are protected: the
extent of disclosure, the extent of director liability, and the ease of shareholder suits. The extent of
disclosure was taken as the indicator to measure the security of property rights, as this appears to be
the best measure of attempts to ensure transparency. In the Pacific island countries, there is little
private sector activity and much less in the way of incorporated companies, so this indicator is likely
not a very good measure of the security of property rights in these countries. Most of the concern
about property rights in Pacific island countries arises over the issue of security of tenure over
customary land—and even freehold land. However, we do not have a measure of the extent of
concern over security of property rights, nor do we have a measure of the level of threat of
expropriation of private property by the state.
Lack of Impartial Contract Enforcement
The indicator used to measure the degree of impartial contract enforcement was taken from the 2006
Doing Business database. Three measures of the costs of enforcing contracts are collected for the
database: (i) number of procedures to enforce a contract, (ii) number of days to enforce a contract,
and (iii) costs of enforcing a contract as a percentage of the claim. In a sense, these measures reflect
on the efficiency of the court system, and no doubt on its impartiality. We chose the costs of
enforcing a contract as a percentage of the claim as a better measure of the impartiality of contract
enforcement than the other two, although the number of days to enforce a contract is also a good
measure. This indicator was scaled within a range of 1–10 by converting the costs of claims for the
175 countries for which indicators were collected to a scale of 1–10 and locating the countries within
this range.
Lack of Interest in Establishing Law and Order
As regards law and order, we would like to have an indicator that measures the degree of government
interest in providing a good law and order environment. The costs of enforcing contracts, discussed
above, is probably as good a measure of government interest in this area as any available.
Government expenditure on the law and justice system is not a suitable measure as it is likely that
such expenditure is driven by law and order problems in the country, which are in turn largely a
function of a lack of investment and job opportunities and the proportion of young males in the
population.
The extent to which political leaders consent to being bound by the same legal obligations
that apply to all other citizens may be a potential indicator of respect for the rule of law. At the
present time, only Tuvalu has enacted a leadership code following the establishment of a draft
leadership code by the Pacific Islands Forum, the declaration of “Principles of Good Leadership” by
the Pacific leaders at their 2003 meeting, and the 1997 declaration of “Eight Principles of
Accountability” by the Pacific Islands Forum economic ministers.
In countries where leadership codes have existed for some time (PNG, Vanuatu and, more
recently, Solomon Islands), they have not been particularly inhibiting for political actors. In the case
270
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
of PNG (Sullimann 2006), for instance, a review of 77 cases brought under the Papua New Guinea
Leadership Code between 1976 and 1995 indicates that only a single case resulted in criminal
conviction; more leaders avoided sanctions such as dismissal (14 instances) or fines (9 cases) through
the simple act of resigning from office (18 cases).
Lack of Interest in Establishing an Efficient and Effective Public Service
It is hypothesized that clientelist politicians would not be interested in developing an efficient,
effective civil service as this would reduce their ability to create and distribute rents. Two indicators,
taken from the World Bank/IFC Doing Business database, have been adopted to measure such
behavior: the costs of starting a business and the costs of trading across borders. These indicators
basically measure the amount of “red tape” that the private sector has to cope with to do business.
The indicator of the costs of starting a business is the number of procedures required. The costs of
trading across borders are indicated by the number of days, number of procedures, costs to exporters
of getting their cargo onto a ship or plane, and costs to importers of getting cargo from the ship or
plane to their store. These two indicators should provide a good measure of the productivity of the
civil service. The indicators were scaled in the same manner as for the costs of enforcing a contract.
Lack of Interest in the Development of Credible Political Parties
While there is intense political party activity and competition in clientelist states, most such parties
remain fluid, populist, legally unrestrained, policy-poor, and administratively bare. Whereas much
scholarship on Pacific politics presumes as much, little of it is empirically based or offers reasons why
this is so. Our research indicates that just one Pacific state has enacted legislation regulating the
conduct of political parties. PNG’s Organic Law on the Integrity of Political Parties and Candidates
2003 requires political parties to have a minimum of 500 subscribed members and to incorporate
under the Associations Incorporation Act 1966 if it seeks to field candidates in general elections
(PacLII 2003). Despite this requirement, current records held by the Office of the Registrar of
Political Parties are only as complete and correct as the information provided by party officials. 5
Elsewhere in the region, parties may choose some form of legal registration, but a majority
do not. In Solomon Islands, for instance, while 12 of the 17 active parties enjoy legal status under
the Charitable Trust Act of 1964, five have chosen not to; and of all these 17 parties, only the
Solomon Islands Social Credit Party of former Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare maintains records
of party members and meetings. For the remainder, party memberships are estimated, and no official
records of meetings are maintained.
Policy Rent Seizure
Two indicators were chosen as measures of the creation and distribution of rents through policies
favoring special interests: (i) the share of international trade taxes in government revenue, and (ii) the
number of government business enterprises (GBEs). International trade taxes are made up of
customs duties on imports and taxes on exports, usually of primary commodities such as logs.
Application of customs duties is a means of creating a situation where a firm or an industry will earn
monopoly rents. This action can favor voters in an incumbent’s electorate and earn reelection. The
share of international trade taxes in total government revenue indicates the government’s propensity
to use this form of taxation over other more neutral taxes such as income and value-added taxes.
5
We are grateful to Paul Bengo, registrar of political parties, for providing party registration information.
How Pervasive is Clientelist Politics in the Pacific?
271
However, there are a couple of problems with the use of this measure. Taxation of imports
and exports is the most easily collected tax in a developing country with poorly developed
administrative and infrastructure services. Also, where exemptions (which can also be seen as a form
of clientelism) and corruption are more common, less tax will be collected. Hence, an even better
measure of clientelist behavior than the share of trade taxes in total taxes could be the extent of
exemptions from customs duties. However, such information is not available.
The creation of GBEs increases opportunities for politicians to favor individuals through
appointment as managers or members of boards of directors, as well as favoring voters through the
geographic location of the GBE or the employment of wantoks (clans). The number of GBEs gives
an idea of the opportunities for employment of favored individuals as managers and board directors.
This indicator was calculated as the number of GBEs—including agricultural banks, development
banks, provident funds, and essential services, as well as other government businesses—operating in
areas normally occupied by the private sector. The share of GBE employment in total formal
employment and the share of GBE output in total GDP would also give an idea of the relative size of
government businesses in the economy and the scope for favoring voters. However, data on these
variables are not available.
Table 11.1: Indicators of Clientelist Behavior in Pacific Countries
Clientelist Behaviors
Indicators
Insecurity of property rights
x Share of health and education expenditure in total
government expenditure
x Public access to essential services
x Protection of investors (extent of disclosure)
Lack of impartial contract enforcement
x Costs of enforcing contracts (costs of claim)
Lack of interest in establishing law and order
x Share of government expenditure on the law and justice
system
x Costs of starting a business
x Costs of trading across borders
x Share of international trade taxes in government revenue
x Number of government business enterprises
Emphasis on targeted transfers rather than
public goods
Lack of interest in establishing an efficient
and effective civil service
“Policy rent” seizure
—use of customs duties
—establishment of government business
enterprises
Lack of interest in the development of
credible political parties
Lack of interest by politicians in developing a
reputation for policy making
x Existence of laws requiring formal registration of political
parties
x Proportion of political parties that operate in accordance
with required laws
x Evidence of formal registration, membership, meeting
records, financial records, and costed policy platforms
x (i) Clearly established policy statements regarding specific
sectors, or “whole of government” policy approaches
Source: Author.
3. Results of Indicators Measuring Clientelist Behavior
in the Pacific
Table 11.2 presents the results for the indicators that we have adopted for measuring the various
behaviors expected in clientelist countries. As country comparators, we have used Australia and New
Zealand, two countries where the expected degree of patron–client political relationships would be
low. We have also included as comparators two developing countries that have had extremely good
economic performance: Botswana and Mauritius. Mauritius is a country that is often used as a
comparator for Fiji because of its similar population size, its reliance on sugar production, and its
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
large Indian population descended from indentured workers. Botswana is a small African country
that was a British colony and has customary land ownerships and traditional chiefs—characteristics
similar to many Pacific island countries.
With respect to targeted transfers as a form of clientelist behavior, Fiji, the Federated States
of Micronesia (FSM), and Kiribati perform least well in terms of expenditure on public goods
(education and health). The low percentage for the Cook Islands should be ignored as Cook
Islanders have free entry to New Zealand and all its welfare services. While Fiji and the FSM are not
the worst performers as providers of access to essential services (safe water and sanitation), they rank
close to the bottom. Kiribati, PNG, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu score least well on this indicator.
However, this may be expected because the bulk of the population of these countries lives in rural
areas in topographically difficult environments, including on many small outlying islands.
The Marshall Islands, the FSM, and Palau score poorly as far as protecting property rights
(protecting investors) is concerned, with the FSM and Palau among some of the worst performers
globally, based on the World Bank/IFC measure. Fiji also does quite poorly on protecting investors,
as do Solomon Islands and Tonga. PNG ranks the lowest on enforcing contracts, followed by
Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and the FSM.
As far as gaining secure access to land is concerned, PNG is in the mid of a landmark
attempt to establish a secure leasehold system for the use of customary land. Vanuatu already has a
system of long-term leasing of customary land; however, it has embarked on a process to strengthen
the security of the property right by improving the dispute settlement and land administration
procedures. The Cook Islands, Fiji, and Samoa also have in place secure long-term leasehold systems
for customary land that have assisted greatly in the development of their tourism industries.
However, Fiji needs to renew its leasehold system for agricultural uses, which is different from the
system applying to leasehold for nonagricultural uses; it has been in limbo for a decade due to the
benefits the major political parties derive from the impasse.
Gaining secure access to customary land for commercial purposes in Kiribati, the Marshall
Islands, the FSM, and Solomon Islands is extremely difficult. In these cases, it appears that
politicians do not see it to be in their interest to develop a secure leasehold system involving low
transaction costs. This is part of the reason why there is very limited private sector activity in these
countries.
There is little consistency between the results for registration of property and trading across
borders as indicators of the efficiency of the civil service. Solomon Islands is by far the worst
performer with regard to the registration of property, followed by Kiribati, Palau, and Samoa.
Vanuatu has the highest costs of importing and exporting, followed by Kiribati.
How Pervasive is Clientelist Politics in the Pacific?
273
Table 11.2: Indicators of Clientelist Behavior
Expend-iture on Share of Expend- Share of Taxes
Access to
Health and
iture on Law and on International Improved Water
Education in
Source,
Trade in Total
Order in Total
Total
Sanitation
Revenue
Government
Government
Facilities
Expenditure Excluding Grants
Registration of
Property
Enforcing
Number of Proce- Contracts Cost
Cost of Import
dures
of Claim
Cost of Export
Protect-ing
Investors Extent
of Disclo-sure Number of GBEs
Cook Islands
22.6
5.6
19.7
100
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
6
Fiji
19.8
4.9
20.1
60
9.7
9.7
8.8
7.7
3.3
19
Kiribati
19.7
4.5
18.9
53
7.9
7.9
7.1
8.5
6.6
32
Marshall
Islands
32.3
n.a.
21
85
9.3
9.3
n.a.
8.4
2.2
n.a.
FSM
18
n.a.
12.9
61
8.6
8.6
n.a.
6
1
n.a.
Palau
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
84
8.6
8.7
7.1
7.9
1
n.a.
PNG
26.3
7.6
24.3
42
9.7
9.5
7.9
3.3
5.5
n.a.
Samoa
24.3
5.1
19.2
94
8.9
8.2
7.1
8.9
5.5
Solomon
Islands
25.3
9.8
57.5
51
8.8
8.5
3.6
5.2
3.3
n.a.
Tonga
32.8
7.1
n.a.
98
9.7
9.6
7.9
8.2
3.3
15
Vanuatu
31.1
8.4
38.1
55
7.4
6.7
9.3
5.5
5.5
n.a.
Australia
23.9
3
2.4
100
9
8.7
7.1
8.8
8.8
n.a.
New Zealand
35.7
4
2.7
97
9.4
9.3
9.3
8.7
10
n.a.
Botswana
31.5
4.9
15
68
6.5
6
7.9
8.3
8.8
n.a.
Mauritius
23.5
8
26.1
97
9.4
9.5
6.4
9
6.6
n.a.
FSM = Federated States of Micronesia, GBE = government business enterprise, n.a. = data not available, PNG = Papua New Guinea.
Source: Author.
274
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
The share of taxes on international trade and the number of government business
enterprises are the indicators for the extent of “policy seizure” in the economy. Solomon Islands,
Vanuatu, and PNG are the countries with the highest shares of such taxes. In Vanuatu’s case, it does
not have an income tax and has relied on taxation of imports—which makes sense because of its
poorly developed infrastructure. Solomon Islands and PNG are heavily dependent on taxation of
exports of primary commodities: logs in the case of Solomon Islands and minerals and logs in the
case of PNG. PNG’s taxation of minerals (including petroleum) is in fact higher than represented by
this measure as it extracts rents from these exports in other ways besides export taxes.
With regard to the number of GBEs offering opportunities for political favors, Kiribati has
by far the largest number among the countries for which this information could be gathered. In fact,
most commercial activity in Kiribati is carried on through GBEs. There is very little private sector
activity. Although no details are shown in Table 11.2, much the same is true of the Marshall Islands
and the FSM. While GBEs do not dominate commercial activity to this extent in PNG, Solomon
Islands, and Vanuatu, political appointments to these bodies are important ways of providing favors.
The absence of credible political parties and the absence of political philosophies or political
manifestos is the situation in most Pacific island countries. Where political parties have been longlived, their raison d’être is racial identity, as in Fiji, or a rallying point around a language and religious
identity, as in Vanuatu. More generally, formation of political parties is only a mechanism for
gaining control of government and this is achieved by the offer of participation in government in
some form. The ultimate development of this process is in Samoa, where there is virtually only a
single party, with opposition parties being obliterated though enticements to join the government.
4. Conclusion
On the basis of the rankings in the bottom three for each indicator, Kiribati, the FSM, and Solomon
Islands exhibit the strongest clientelist tendencies, with Kiribati in the bottom three for five
indicators and the FSM and Solomon Islands in the bottom three for four indicators. Maybe
somewhat surprisingly, Tonga is the best performer, not appearing in the bottom three score on any
indicator.
Globally, in terms of the World Bank/IFC measures, the Pacific countries do poorly only in
terms of the measure of protecting investors. On the other measures, with a few exceptions, they
rank in the top half of the country distributions. Australia and New Zealand generally score better
than the Pacific island countries, though not always. Botswana scores low on provision of access to
clean water and sanitation and on trading across borders. It is surprising that after many years of
rapid growth in Botswana that its provision of basic public goods such as clean water and sanitation
is so poor. Its poor score on trading across borders is not so unexpected, given that it is a landlocked
country in a continent where transport costs are very high.
At this stage, the indicators suggest that Kiribati, the FSM, and Solomon Islands exhibit
behavior that is most consistent with that suggested by the clientelist model. They are also countries
with some of the lowest per capita incomes and poorest economic growth in the Pacific. Thus, the
answer to one of the questions asked may be that clientelist politics leads to slower economic growth.
However, one has to ask whether the causality runs in the other direction, or if there is some other
factor(s) causing both. It is difficult to think of a convincing reason for poor economic growth to
lead to clientelist behavior. It is more convincing to argue that the communal nature of these
societies results in both clientelism and poor growth. Some argue that what may be seen by western
How Pervasive is Clientelist Politics in the Pacific?
275
eyes as nepotism (in the form of appointments to boards) or serving client interests (such as building
roads and bridges in the politician’s village) should be considered acceptable forms of customary
behavior. But, there are customary economies in the Pacific that have been growing reasonably well
and they appear to exhibit less clientelism.
So what else has been learned from this exercise? As with attempts to measure governance,
the study confirms the difficulty in finding objective measures of people’s behavior (Gani and
Duncan 2007a, 2007b). The direct measures we would like to have—such as exemptions from
customs duty, how well the judiciary is enforcing contracts, and the number of incomplete projects
in politicians’ electorates—are impossible to compile. So we are left with trying to find less direct
measures of behavior, which can be the result of various factors.
Still, the compilation of indicators of the various forms that clientelist behavior can take
does appear to add up to a fairly convincing, though circumstantial, conclusion that clientelism is
alive and well in some Pacific island societies. An implication of this finding is that economic reform
can be very difficult because of resistance from politicians. If politicians do not wish to see
improvements in institutions underpinning the private sector or are resistant to improvements in the
public service because it will interfere with their ability to appropriate and distribute rents, then
expectations about reform success have to be modified. If reform is to become more successful, ways
to change the incentives facing politicians have to be found.
276
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
References
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and Action Plan. Manila.
———. 2004. Responding to the Priorities of the Poor: A Pacific Strategy for the Asian Development
Bank 2005–2009. Manila.
Gani, A., and R. Duncan. 2007a. Measuring Good Governance Using Time Series Data: Fiji
Islands. Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy. 12(3). pp. 367–385.
———. 2007b. Constructing a Governance Index for Cook Islands, 1985–2005. Pacific Economic
Bulletin. 22(2). pp. 104–118.
Dixit, A., and J. Londregan. 1996. The Determinants of Success of Special Interests in Redistributive
Politics. Journal of Politics. 58. pp. 1132–1155.
Hart, O. 1995. Firms, Contracts and Financial Structure. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Keefer, P. 2004. Clientelism, Credibility and Democracy. Washington, DC: World Bank.
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPUBSERV/Resources/keefer.pdf
Keefer, P., et al. 1996. Property and Contract Rights under Democracy and Dictatorship. The
Journal of Economic Growth. 1(2). pp. 243–276.
Keefer, P., and S. Knack. 2002. Boondoggles and Expropriation: Rent-seeking and Policy Distortion
When Property Rights are Insecure. Policy Research Working Paper No. 2910. Washington, DC:
World Bank.
Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute. 2003. Independent State of Papua New Guinea.
www.paclii.org/cgi-bin/disp.pl/pg/legis/consol_act/olotioppac2003542/olotioppac2003542.html?
query=political%20parties
Reilly, B. 2006. Political Reform in Papua New Guinea: testing the evidence. Pacific Economic
Bulletin. 21(2). pp. 187–194.
Robinson, J., and R. Torvik. 2002. White Elephants. CEPR Discussion Paper No. 3459, London:
Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR).
Robinson, J., and T. Verdier. 2002. The Political Economy of Clientelism. CEPR Discussion Paper
No. 3205. London: Center for Economic Policy Research.
Sullimann, G.W. 2006. Leaders Referred for Prosecution by the Ombudsman Commission under
the Leadership Code as at 31 December 2005. Information and experience sharing seminar on
Public Service Ethics and Accountability, 28–30 August, University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji.
Tanzi, V., and H. Davoodi. 1997. Corruption, Public Investment and Growth. IMF Working Paper
WP/97/139. Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund.
Tuhaika Jr., J.A. 2007. State-owned Enterprises and the Principal–Agent Problem: A Case Study of
the Solomon Islands Water Authority. Pacific Economic Bulletin. 22(2). pp. 131–139.
12 The Political
Economy of Logging
in Solomon Islands
by Matthew Allen
ABSTRACT
This political economy study of the logging industry in Solomon Islands builds upon previous
analytical work to propose an explanatory framework for the prevalence of a range of practices that
can be broadly described under the rubric of “corruption.” The literature on social embeddedness
and political culture is drawn upon to develop a framework that emphasizes the importance of social
and cultural influences—as well as economic ones—on the behavior of elected representatives,
government officials, and village “big men.” Like all Melanesians, they are enmeshed in networks of
obligation and reciprocity. Ultimately, it is the socially and culturally grounded expectations of their
kinsmen that compel them to access and distribute resources such as from forestry. This indigenous
political culture has been overlain with the distinctive business culture of the Asian loggers and has
proven to be highly susceptible to the latter’s venal suasions. This political economy framework goes
a long way toward explaining the ongoing lack of political will for legislative reform of the forestry
sector, as well as the chronic instability that has characterized politics in Solomon Islands since
achieving independence.
1. Introduction
Round logs have been the most valuable export commodity for Solomon Islands since the early
1990s. There have been two peaks in the volume and value of annual log exports. The first occurred
in 1996, before the Asian financial crisis and the subsequent political and social unrest in Solomon
Islands caused a marked decline in timber production and exports. The industry has recovered
steadily since 2001 and exports are once again at record levels, with logging revenue currently
contributing around 70% of export income (compared with 50% in 1994) and more than 15% of
government revenue. High levels of log production and exports have been largely responsible for the
high rates of economic growth experienced by Solomon Islands in recent years.
However, timber production has exceeded estimated sustainable production levels in most
years since 1981. The most recent technical assessment estimates that Solomon Islands’ forests are
being exploited at four times the sustainable limit and that the natural forest resource will be
278 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
exhausted by the end of 2015 (URS 2006). The current global economic downturn, and the slowing
of demand from the People’s Republic of China in particular, caused a slight decline in timber
production in Solomon Islands in the fourth quarter of 2008 and a marked decline in the first
quarter of 2009. Some observers believe that these declines signal the beginning of the predicted
collapse of the logging industry. 1 However, log exports grew by 20.5% in the second quarter and
look set to remain stable or increase again in the third quarter. The Central Bank of Solomon Islands
(CBSI) attributes the 23% increase in log exports in the month of August 2009 to “increased
demand combined with less competition in the log markets” (CBSI 2009).
The first timber boom in Solomon Islands generated an effluence of high-quality social
science research on various dimensions of the political economy of the logging industry (Duncan
1995; Price Waterhouse 1995; Frazer 1997a, 1997b; Dauvergne 1998, 1998/9; Bennett 2000; and
Kabutaulaka 2000). Collectively, this research documented the growing collusion between foreign
logging companies and local politicians, systemic corruption, bureaucratic mismanagement, and
poor monitoring and enforcement. These characteristics were attributed to the weakness of the postcolonial state and the emergence of a post-colonial political culture that places value on the
distribution of wealth and resources to followers or clients, often along kinship lines. The fluidity of
parliamentary politics in the absence of strong political parties—described by Steeves (1996) as
“unbounded politics”—is also thought to have contributed to the particular political economy of the
logging industry in Solomon Islands.
Researchers further demonstrated that corruption, the distribution of revenues under
logging contracts, and the poor enforcement of rules and regulations contributed to large losses in
potential government and landowner revenues from the logging industry. It was estimated that in
1993–1994, a period of exceptionally high timber prices, the government and landowners forwent
130 million Solomon Islands dollars (SI$) in potential logging revenue due to the “unfortunate
design” of logging contracts (SI$36 million) and underreporting of log prices (SI$94 million)
(Duncan 1995, pp. xvi–xvii). This was equivalent to around 35% of gross domestic product (GDP)
and 53% of government revenue.
In 1995, it was estimated that SI$21 million–$34 million in potential government revenue
was forgone due to export tax exemptions granted to local landowning companies (Price Waterhouse
1995, p. I, Bennett 2000, p. 322). Most of this economic rent was captured by foreign logging
companies due to the nature of their agreements with landowning companies to which they were
contracted to provide logging services (Price Waterhouse 1995, pp. 25–28). This study also found
that the Solomon Islands’ tax regime encouraged foreign logging companies to find ways to avoid
paying tax. Tax avoidance strategies documented in the study included the underreporting,
misclassification and mis-scaling of logs, and underinvoicing the value of log exports (Price
Waterhouse 1995, p. ii).
In contrast to the situation during the mid to late 1990s, there has been a dearth of research
on the political economy of the current logging boom in Solomon Islands. However, sources such as
the 2005 Special Audit Report on the Solomon Islands’ Department of Forestry, Environment and
Conservation indicates that many of the characteristics described in the earlier research persist
(Office of the Auditor-General [OAG] 2005). The report documents ongoing fraud, corruption,
1
For example, the latest International Monetary Fund (IMF) Article IV Report states, ”[t]he current outlook, in line with that of
the authorities, is for logging output to decline from 1.5 million cubic meters in 2008 to 1.1 million cubic meters in 2009, and
by another 20% a year in 2010 and 2011, with an even more rapid pace of decline thereafter” (IMF 2009, p. 4).
The Political Economy of Logging in Solomon Islands 279
mismanagement, and maladministration throughout the forestry sector. It estimates revenue forgone
from export tax exemptions of around SI$10 million in 2003 and SI$30 million in 2004.
Moreover, the undervaluing of log prices has become both institutionalized and politicized
in the form of the determined value of logs (DVL) schedule. In its March 2008 Quarterly Review,
CBSI took the unprecedented and extraordinary step of including a section, Log Revenue and the
Determined Value of Logs, in which it was highly critical of the government’s failure, over many
years, to implement a DVL schedule that adequately reflects international prices for round logs.
CBSI conservatively estimates that in 2007 the government forwent SI$80 million in revenue, in the
form of export duties, due to the undervaluing of log exports. Foreign logging companies, and their
local “clients,” are continuing to appropriate most of the economic surplus from the logging industry
in Solomon Islands, just as they were during the first logging boom (Duncan 1995; Price
Waterhouse 1995; Bennett 2000).
This chapter analyzes the political economy of the logging industry in Solomon Islands,
with a particular focus on the past decade or so. It builds upon previous analytical work to propose
an explanatory framework for the ongoing prevalence of a range of practices that can be broadly
described under the rubric of “corruption.” Literature on social embeddedness and political culture is
drawn upon to develop a framework that emphasizes the importance of social and cultural
influences—as well as economic ones—on the behavior of elected representatives, government
officials, and village big men in Solomon Islands. These people, like all Melanesians, are enmeshed in
networks of obligation and reciprocity. Ultimately, therefore, it is the socially and culturally
grounded expectations of their kinsmen that compel Members of Parliament, government officials,
and local big men to access and distribute resources, and the logging industry has afforded significant
opportunity for such patronage. This indigenous political culture has been overlain with the
distinctive business culture of the Asian loggers and has proven to be highly susceptible to the latter’s
venal suasions. The political economy framework developed here goes a long way toward explaining
the ongoing lack of political will for meaningful legislative reform of the forestry sector, as well as the
chronic instability that has characterized politics in Solomon Islands since it gained independence in
1978.
While the primary focus of the chapter is at the national level, on the relationships between
foreign logging companies and state actors, some attention is also given to the role of forest resource
owners and the nature of their engagements with logging companies and the state. Not all
landowners have supported the logging of their forests, as evidenced by various acts of resistance over
the years. Many landowning communities have been deeply divided by the issue of logging.
However, those who oppose logging frequently lack the resources and capacity to compete effectively
in the timber rights process against their fellow community members who have the financial and
technical backing of the logging companies. Moreover, the long-standing distinction in the law
between the ownership of land and the ownership of timber rights has allowed individuals with
tenuous or spurious claims to obtain the rights to timber and become the principal beneficiaries of
logging royalties (Corrin 1992). Having said that, we must not lose sight of the fact that many
landowners have been active participants in the logging industry.
This chapter begins with a brief introduction to Solomon Islands before moving on to
examine the history of its forestry sector from the colonial period up to the present day. The focus is
on timber production levels, changes to regulatory arrangements, and the relationship between the
two. The political economy of the first logging boom is then examined in more detail with reference
to the published literature on this period. The next section focuses on developments over the past
280 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
decade or so. It is demonstrated that many of the political economy factors that characterized the
logging industry in the 1990s have continued and, in some cases, have intensified. The penultimate
part of the chapter proposes a framework for explaining the political economy of the logging
industry in Solomon Islands. The approach stresses the need to situate both state actors and formal
state institutions within the particular social and cultural context of Solomon Islands. This emphasis,
it is argued, requires that a political culture lens is engaged in the analytical framework. The final
section draws out the wider implications of the analysis conducted and proposes some options for
external donor agencies seeking to operate within, or assist in changing, the underlying political
economy of Solomon Islands.
2. Solomon Islands: A Brief Social, Political,
and Economic History
Solomon Islands is an archipelago of more than 1,000 islands with a population of around 500,000.
Its people are distributed over six main islands and speak around 80 languages. While the island of
Malaita accounts for one-third of the total population, the national capital, Honiara, is on
Guadalcanal, where it was established immediately after the Second World War. Around 85% of
Solomon Islanders reside in rural areas on their customary-owned lands. Most Solomon Islanders
(around 95%) identify themselves as Melanesians.
The dominant form of indigenous leadership in pre-contact times was the “big man” model,
although hereditary chiefly systems existed in some areas. A big man’s success depended in large part
on his ability to organize labor and mobilize resources, particularly pigs and root crops, to generate
and distribute wealth, thereby creating and maintaining networks of obligation and reciprocity. He
was also adept at raising war parties or engaging professional assassins. Sporadic episodes of
intergroup warfare were commonplace against a background of constantly shifting alliances. The
symbiotic processes of colonization and missionization eventually brought an end to tribal warfare.
However, the big man style of politics and leadership continues to exert significant influence on
local, provincial, and national politics.
The Political Economy of Logging in Solomon Islands 281
Figure 12.1: Solomon Islands, Showing Current Provincial Boundaries
Source: Cartography Australian National University, 2007.
In 1893, the British formally annexed Solomon Islands, which had been under the “loose
jurisdiction” of the British High Commission in Fiji since 1877, establishing the British Solomon
Islands Protectorate (Bennett 1987, p. 104). The colony was primarily established for strategic
purposes, especially the protection of Australian and New Zealand interests from the perceived threat
of French and German expansion in the Pacific. The main economic interest for the colony of
Queensland was the Pacific labor trade, which had been supplying cheap labor for the sugarcane
plantations of Queensland, Fiji, and Samoa since around 1870. The importance of this trade
provided the British with a “plausible excuse for “protecting the Solomons” (Morrell cited in Bennett
1987, p. 105). The establishment of the protectorate was premised on the requirement that the
colony would be economically self-sufficient, and this was to be achieved through the establishment
of a plantation economy based on copra production (Bennett 1987, p. 103; 2000, p. 39).
Solomon Islands was granted independence in 1978 and inherited the Westminster-style
system of government that Britain bequeathed to many of its former colonies. Despite calls from
several “federalist” islands and regions (particularly Guadalcanal and Western) for greater political
devolution, a unitary system was introduced (Ghai 1983, p. 26). Seven provinces were established
under the 1978 Constitution and were later given their own assemblies, executives, and premiers
under the Provincial Government Act 1981. 2 However, the central government retained tight
regulatory control over the executive and legislative functions of the provinces.
Heralded by the Western Breakaway Movement on the eve of independence, the issues of
devolution and provincial autonomy—in the face of what is widely seen as the inequitable
concentration of political and economic power in the national capital—have loomed large in the
politics of the independent state. Moreover, successive governments have suffered from chronic
instability due to the weakness of the political party system and the prevalence of personalized and
2
There are now nine provinces, following the separation of Choiseul from Western Province in 1992 and Rennell and Bellona
from Central Province in 1996.
282 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
parochial politics. Governments have changed frequently due to parliamentary votes of no
confidence or the threat thereof.3 There have been 14 governments in the 31 years since
independence.
The post-colonial period has seen significant economic diversification, a trend that resulted
from the colonial administration’s policy of diversifying the export base in preparation for
independence. In the 1960s, copra was still the primary export commodity. However by 1977–1978,
it accounted for only one-quarter of the value of exports, with timber products and fish (mostly
tuna) accounting for about 25% each and palm oil contributing 16% (Bennett 1987, p. 330).
Timber exports increased rapidly in the 1980s and 1990s under the governments of Solomon
Mamaloni—a product of both the expansion of logging onto customary land from around 1980 and
the growing collusion between government ministers and Asian logging companies (Frazer 1997a,
1997b; Dauvergne 1998/9; and Bennett 2000).
From 1990 to 1998, timber accounted for around 45% of the total value of exports, while
fish contributed 27%, palm oil 12%, copra 5%, and cocoa 4% (Fraenkel 2004, p. 33). In 1999, the
Solomon Islands Plantation Limited oil palm operation and the Gold Ridge mine (which
commenced production in June 1998), both on Guadalcanal, contributed 20% and 25% of export
earnings, respectively. However, both of these operations were closed down as a direct consequence
of the violent social unrest—the so-called “ethnic tension”—that commenced in late 1998 and
continued in various forms until the deployment of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon
Islands (RAMSI) in July 2003. The conflict, in concert with the earlier collapse of log exports, had a
strongly deleterious effect on Solomon Islands economy as measured in terms of real GDP,
particularly during 1998–2000 (Figure 12.2).
The regional assistance intervention quickly succeeded in restoring law and order, arresting
large numbers of ex-militants, and retrieving most of the guns that had been raided from police
armouries during the conflict. Rapid economic recovery ensued on the back of peacekeeping and
reconstruction efforts, with the recovery of smallholder cash cropping, the reopening of the palm oil
plantation under new ownership and, most importantly, a dramatic increase in logging activity.
Economic growth has averaged around 6% a year since 2004. However, most observers agree that
this growth rate is fundamentally unsustainable. 4
3
4
The vast majority of post-independence governments have been formed by coalitions of political parties and independents, and
most of these coalitions have been “highly unstable, continually in flux and open to persistent challenge through the mechanism
of votes of no-confidence” (Steeves 1996, p. 117).
According to the 2007 IMF Article IV Report (p. 5), “Nevertheless, with one of the fastest growing populations in the world, per
capita income is the lowest in the region. Economic activity continues to rely on the unstainable exploitation of the country’s
forests and large donor assistance.”.
The Political Economy of Logging in Solomon Islands 283
Figure 12.2: Solomon Islands Gross Domestic Product Growth, 1997–2009
(1985=100)
15
5
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
0
1997
Percent change in GDP (%)
10
-5
-10
-15
-20
Year
GDP = gross domestic product
Note: The data for 2009 is based on estimated GDP growth of 0.4%.
Source: Central Bank of Solomon Islands.
The History of Forest Policy and Timber Production Levels
The rapid expansion of logging after around 1980 was related both to legislative changes that
enabled logging to expand onto customary land and to a shift in the ownership of the logging
companies operating in Solomon Islands away from the United Kingdom and Australia toward
Japan, Malaysia, and the Republic of Korea. These developments coincided with expanding
international demand for logs, particularly from Japan, and the winding down of export log
production in the Southeast Asian countries that had supplied Japan’s market (Indonesia, Malaysia,
and the Philippines). By 1985, 95% of logging in Solomon Islands was on customary land and most
of the companies seeking new licenses were controlled by Asian nationals (Bennett 2000, pp. 235,
238). These two factors, in concert with underlying “Melanesian patterns of reciprocity” (Bennett
2000, p. 209), gave rise to a “new business climate... the main feature of which was a rising level of
corruption” (Frazer 1997b, p. 56).
There was no significant logging on customary land in Solomon Islands before the passage
of the Forest and Timber Amendment Act 1977, which introduced direct dealings between loggers
and landholders in relation to the logging of forests on customary land. Prior to this, almost all
logging was on crown or government land. This was a deliberate policy on the part of the colonial
administration, which was keen to “protect” Solomon Islanders and their forests from rapacious
commercial exploitation, while also ensuring that land perceived to be idle was brought into
284 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
productive use (Bennett 2000, p. 182). With these objectives in mind, the colonial government
expended much effort in the 1950s and 1960s attempting to create a Forest Estate that would
constitute “a sustainable asset for the future Solomons’ state and people” (Bennett 2000, p. 182).
As the relatively small amount of crown land alienated early in the colonial period was
insufficient for the purposes of the Forest Estate, the colonial government had to find ways to
incorporate more land into the Estate. This was attempted through a variety of legislative vehicles, all
of which proved to be deeply unpopular with Solomon Islanders, who inherently distrusted any form
of land acquisition by the state in the name of the public good. At the same time, Solomon Islanders
became increasingly aware of the possibility that they could sell their logs or timber rights directly to
the loggers without having to turn their land over to the government. The desire for direct dealing
became “a popular cause” on the eve of independence, one which was seized upon by then Chief
Minister Peter Kenilorea, who introduced the necessary amendments to the Forest and Timber Act
1969. According to Bennett,
[t]he nascent independent government set the seal on the weakening of state
control of forest use for the public good when it introduced this legislation in
1977. Unlike the departing colonial government, Peter Kenilorea and his
supporters must have believed that the people of this new nation of villagers
were indeed “a fit and proper people to make contracts” (2000, p. 185).
Hence commenced what Ian Frazer describes as the second of two distinct phases in the
history of logging in Solomon Islands. The transition into the second phase was marked by (i) the
shift of logging activities from government-owned to customary land, (ii) an expansion in both the
geographical scope of logging activities and production levels, (iii) an increase in the number of
companies licensed to operate (a fourfold increase between 1981 and 1983), (iv) a greatly reduced
level of control over logging companies, and (v) the increased use of corrupt practices by the foreign
companies entering the country during this period (Frazer 1997b, pp. 45–48). Timber production
levels started to increase quite sharply from 1980 and have remained above estimated sustainable
production levels in most years since then (Figures 12.3 and 12.4).
The Political Economy of Logging in Solomon Islands 285
Figure 12.3. Solomon Islands Annual Timber Production, 1963–1995 (‘000 m3)
m3 = cubic meter.
Notes: Frazer’s data sources are as follows: Solomon Islands Statistics Office Statistical Bulletins 9/85, 15/88, 22/93; Central Bank
of Solomon Islands Annual Reports 1993–1995; Solomon Islands Ministry of Natural Resources 1994.
Source: Frazer 1997b: 47
Figure 12.4. Solomon Islands Log Production and Exports, 1990–2008 (‘000 m3)
1,600
1,400
CBSI log
exports
CBSI log
production
FD Export
Database
Sustainable
yield 1995
Sustainable
yield 2000
Sustainable
yield 2006
Volume ('000 m3)
1,200
1,000
800
600
400
200
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
1991
1990
0
Year
CBSI = Central Bank of Solomon Islands, FD = Forestry Department, m3 = cubic meter.
Notes: CBSI log export data are derived from the Customs Division via the National Statistics Office. According to an officer of
the Economic Department of CBSI, the National Statistics Office did not report log export data for 1998 and 1999 and has not
reported such since 2004 (D. Kiriau, personal communication, August 2009). CBSI log production data is derived from the
Forestry Department and may include a very small volume of logs that are consumed domestically. The Forestry Department
export database data was reported in URS (2006, p. 10). Sustainable yield estimates made in 1995, 2000, and 2006 are also
reported in URS (2006).
Sources: CBSI Quarterly Review 15(1)/2003, 16(4)/2004, 17(1)/2005, 17(2)/2005, 20(1)/2008, 20(3)/2008, 21(1)/2009; Forestry
Department Export Database; URS 2006.
286 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Figure 12.5: Value of Solomon Islands Log Exports, 1990–2008 (SI$ and $)
1,000
900
Value (SI$ and $ million)
800
700
600
500
Value SI $
400
Value $
300
200
100
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
1991
1990
0
Year
SI$ = Solomon Islands dollar, $ = United States dollar.
Sources: Central Bank of Solomon Islands (CBSI) Quarterly Review 15(1)/2003, 16(4)/2004, 17(4)/2005, 20(3)/2008, 21(1)/2009.
The Regulatory Environment: Law, Monitoring, and Enforcement
Another important development that occurred early in the post-colonial period was the passage of
the North New Georgia Timber Corporation Act in 1979. This legislation built upon the direct
dealings introduced by the 1977 legislation by enabling landowners to establish logging companies.
The number of landowning companies involved in the logging industry has proliferated since the
early 1990s when an export tax exemption was introduced for them. Landowning companies have
generally contracted the services of foreign logging companies to carry out timber felling, transport,
and marketing. By 2005, there were an estimated 24 foreign companies working under contractual
agreements with 89 local companies or license holders (Kabutaulaka 2007, p. 252). In her detailed
history of the Solomon Islands’ forestry sector, Judith Bennett consistently describes the local logging
companies as “fronts” for overseas contractors (see, for example, Bennett 2000, p. 333).
Importantly, the North New Georgia Timber Corporation Act further entrenched a
distinction between land ownership and the ownership of timber rights that had been introduced
with the passage of the 1977 amendment to the Forest and Timber Act. The latter act was amended
in 1984 to become known as the Forest Resources and Timber Utilisation Act. However, neither
that amendment nor subsequent amendments in 1990 and 1991 succeeded in clarifying “the
relationship between landowning groups and persons entitled to grant timber rights” (Corrin 1992,
p. 131). The act was amended again in 2000 to assign provincial executives the function of
determining the ownership of timber rights. This was previously a function of area councils, which
were abolished in 1997.
The 2000 amendment was also necessary because the Forest Act 1999, which had been
introduced by the reformist Ulufa’alu government, was passed by Parliament and received royal
assent, but was never gazetted and hence never became law. The 2005 OAG report notes that the
significant number of licenses issued under the provisions of the Forest Act 1999 are technically
illegal (OAG 2005, p. 61). Importantly, both the failed 1999 legislation and the more recently
The Political Economy of Logging in Solomon Islands 287
drafted (but not enacted) Forest Bill 2004 contain provisions that would resolve the long-standing
distinction under the forestry law between the ownership of land and the ownership of the timber
rights. This distinction has been one the greatest weakness of Solomon Islands’ forestry legislation. It
has caused an excessive number of disputes within and between landowning groups, and has enabled
individuals with “the most tenuous claims to become the principal beneficiaries of logging royalties”
(Corrin 1992, p. 136). It is also very difficult for communities to challenge the timber rights process
other than through costly court proceedings.
The failure to systematically revise the Forest Resources and Timber Utilisation Act has
meant that the forestry sector has been governed by outdated colonial legislation originally designed
to regulate logging activities on government land. This legislation has been patently inadequate for
regulating the changed nature of logging activities since the early 1980s, particularly the expansion
onto customary land and the advent of direct dealing (Bennett 2000; OAG 2005; Wairiu 2007).
Observers have also remarked upon the difficulty of reading Solomon Islands’ forestry legislation,
contained as it is in a “crazy patchwork” of acts, amendments, and regulations (Bennett 2000, p.
240). According to Peter Dauvergne, writing in 1998, “[t]here are serious problems with the
structure and content of forest legislation. No consolidated text exists and it is often quite difficult to
uncover timber management rules” (Dauvergne 1998, p. 145). A raft of new regulations introduced
in 2005 has further added to this legislative complexity.
Adding to these problems with the form and content of forestry law has been the weakness
of monitoring and enforcement. This commenced with the chronic under-resourcing of the Forestry
Division throughout the 1980s. Although the “bones of a timber control unit” had been in existence
since 1980, successive governments failed to fund it adequately, and consequently the Forestry
Division was brought to “near immobility as the regulator of forest use” (Bennett 2000, p. 253).
This was at time when there was increasing evidence of transfer pricing, undervaluation of species,
and the under-declaring of volumes—not to mention destructive and illegal logging practices.
Bennett concluded that the failure of successive governments during the 1980s to provide adequate
resources for timber control efforts pointed to a lack of “political will to control the forests, the
loggers, and the landowners for the long-term interest of the nation” (Bennett 2000, p. 253).
The control of forestry activities became increasingly politicized during the 1990s and
revolved around the Timber Control Unit (TCU) within the Forestry Division, supported by the
Australian government. The TCU was established in 1993 to monitor log grades, species, volumes,
and prices. It immediately began to document abuses by logging companies, raising the ire of the
companies, some of which approached politicians about abolishing the unit (Bennett 2000, p. 340).
The work of the TCU in 1993–1995 dramatically reduced transfer pricing margins and variations in
reported export prices for the same species and grade, thereby increasing foreign exchange receipts
and government revenue (Dauvergne 1998/9, p. 535, Bennett 2000, p. 347).
The TCU played an important role in implementing the reforms to the forestry sector that
were introduced by former Prime Minister Francis Billy Hilly’s National Coalition Partnership
(NCP), which formed a government following the national election of mid-1993 (Dauvergne
1998/9, pp. 534–535; Bennett 2000, pp. 341–345). The NCP government increased log export
duties and announced plans to introduce a ban on log exports in 1997. It also intensified control
activities, including increased measures to verify the grades and species classifications of log exports
and improved monitoring of timber export prices. The TCU was central to these new arrangements
and also drafted a logging code of practice, which later formed part of broader revisions to forestry
legislation also announced by Billy Hilly.
288 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
The return to power of Mamaloni following the fall of Billy Hilly’s government in
November 1994 marked the beginning of the end of the TCU. The new government immediately
set about dismantling all of the reforms that had been introduced by NCP and shelved plans to
engage a foreign firm to strengthen the surveillance of logging operations (Frazer 1997b, p. 66;
Dauvergne 1998/9, p. 534; Bennett 2000, pp. 345–356). There were signs from early 1994 that
Mamaloni had the TCU firmly in his sights. In January 1995, the Australian government announced
that it would significantly cut aid to the Solomon Islands’ forestry sector, as it had long threatened to
do, which provided Mamaloni the opportunity he was looking for:
For Mamaloni, it provided the justification for the gutting of the TCU, the bête
noir of those who spirited away illegal shipments, protected species, and
undersized logs and who paid politicians and others bribes to look the other way
(Bennett 2000, p. 354).
Australian government assistance to the forestry sector resumed following the national election of
1997, when Mamaloni lost power to the Solomon Islands Alliance for Change (SIAC) coalition
headed by Bartholomew Ulufa’alu. However, the revived TCU has never been restored to its
previous level of effectiveness and the long-standing problems of monitoring, surveillance, control,
and enforcement persist (Wairiu 2007, p. 243). According to the 2005 OAG report, exporters were
regularly failing to detail timber species and grades on export declaration forms, making it impossible
for customs officers to check the accuracy of the determined values upon which export duty is paid
(OAG 2005, p. 57). The report further noted that this problem was compounded by the lack of
resources (fuel and boats) available for forestry officers to carry out inspections at log ponds (where
10% of logs are inspected) and at wharves during loading (where 100% of logs are inspected).
Documents obtained from the Forestry Department in August 2009 indicate that the
unsatisfactory state of log export monitoring continues. The summary report of inspections carried
out by the Operations Section for the first two quarters of 2009 states that of 262 declared export log
shipments, only 79 log pond inspections and 21 wharf loading inspections were carried out,
representing 30% and 8% of the total number of shipments, respectively. The report listed “fuel
supply and other logistics” and “provision of staff accommodation” as factors constraining the ability
of forestry officers to carry out the inspections.
Statements by an “anonymous logger” reported in a local newspaper article in May 2008
suggest that logging companies are continuing to exploit weaknesses in the monitoring and
surveillance of log exports to misreport log species and grades, thereby avoiding export tax (Solomon
Times, 26 May 2008). The logger also claimed that logging companies commonly bribe forestry
officers with “money and beer” to accept their log export entries.
3. The Political Economy of the First Logging Boom
Solomon Islands’ first logging boom, which culminated in 1996, was characterized by an
increasingly close association between the executive arm of the state and both foreign- and locally
owned logging companies. This was particularly the case with the governments of Solomon
Mamaloni, who held power from 1981–1984, 1989–1993, and 1994–1997. Bennett describes how
logging in the 1990s became “highly political” and went as far as describing the Mamaloni
government of 1994–1997 as “the loggers’ government” (Bennett 2000, pp. 339, 346).
The relationship between the logging industry and the state developed two main
dimensions. The first was the direct involvement of politicians in the industry, particularly as
The Political Economy of Logging in Solomon Islands 289
directors of landowning companies. The second was the use of bribes and inducements by foreign
logging companies as a means of influencing government policy and circumventing or manipulating
various aspects of the complex forestry procedures. Not only did this nexus between the state and the
logging industry had a strong bearing on forest policy and actual forestry outcomes—steering both to
the economic advantage of the loggers—it also directly contributed to the political instability that
characterized the 1990s.
Of the three terms that Mamaloni served as Prime Minister, the middle one (1989–1993) was
the only occasion when he came to office following a general election. Mamaloni was particularly adroit at
manipulating the fluid, “unbounded” parliamentary politics that occur in the absence of strong political
parties. Being “the darling of the loggers” (Bennett 2000, pp. 340–341) provided Mamaloni with access to
resources with which to grease the wheels of parliamentary fluidity.
A case in point is the collapse of the reformist NCP government in late 1994 due to a spate
of defections and resignations of cabinet members who were “lured by lucrative deals” (Dauvergne
1998/9:, p. 534). It was alleged that several Parliament members had defected from NCP after
receiving bribes from Honiara businessman Robert Goh, who was acting as the go-between for the
“logging lobby” (Bennett 2000, p. 341). These allegations formed the basis of formal charges and
court proceedings against at least five former NCP cabinet members, the outcomes of which are
unclear (Kabutaulaka 1997, p. 488, and 2000, p. 95; Bennett 2000, pp. 341, 465). There are
countless other reports of bribes and inducements being paid or offered to politicians and public
officials at all levels of government by logging companies during the 1990s (see, for example,
Kabutaulaka 2000, p. 95).
The coming to power of Bartholomew Ulufa’alu’s SIAC government following the 1997
national election exacerbated the pressure on patronage politics caused by the collapse of log exports
due to the Asian financial crisis. In response to declining government revenue and increasing public
sector debt, the SIAC government, in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank, instituted a
reform program described as a mix of “home-grown” and donor-inspired initiatives (Bennett 2000,
pp. 360, 379–383). 5 The reforms “would have not only reduced the logging quota to a more
sustainable level, but also would have seen much more regulation of the industry” (Bennett 2002, p.
10). They were met with stiff resistance from vested interests throughout the public service and from
national Parliament members “who had done well out of the Mamaloni Government” (Gina 2003,
p. 271, also see Hughes 2001). Set against this background, allegations that members of the
parliamentary opposition, led by Mamaloni until his death in January 2000, were deliberately
stirring up trouble on Guadalcanal to destabilize the reformist Ulufa’alu government are not entirely
implausible, particularly as several attempts to remove the SIAC government through constitutional
means had been unsuccessful.
During his 1990–1993 term, 11 of Mamaloni’s 15 cabinet ministers were directly linked to
logging companies (Frazer 1997a, p. 329; Bennett 2000, pp. 340–341). Mamaloni was himself a
director of a local logging company known as Somma, which operated in his home province of
Makira. Somma was a major beneficiary of various tax exemptions, including export duties, which
were introduced when Mamaloni regained power in late 1994 and set about comprehensively
dismantling Billy Hilly’s forestry reform program. Somma is estimated to have profited by SI$4.3
million in 1995 due to these exemptions (Bennett 2000, p. 346).
5
The reforms included reducing the number of government ministries, downsizing the public service by 10%, and implementing
significant reforms in the forestry sector including the drafting of a new forestry act and the establishment of a forestry board
and a forestry trust.
290 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
4. The Political Economy of the Second Logging Boom
Solomon Islands’ second logging boom, which has seen log export volumes reach an historic high of
1.5 million cubic meters (m3) in 2008, almost twice the previous peak of around 800,000 m3 in
1996, has attracted much less attention from social scientists. However, a number of published
sources, in conjunction with media reports, interviews conducted by the author, and anecdotal
evidence, suggest that the basic political economy drivers that were documented during the 1990s
continue and, in some cases, have intensified. Key decisions in relation to the forestry sector continue
to be made by politicians who have direct interests in the logging industry, and politicians, Forestry
Department officials, and landowners continue to be prone to the venal suasions of logging
companies. This section focuses on two practices that between them are enabling logging companies
to continue to capture much of the economic rent from logging: export tax exemptions and the
undervaluing of log exports.
Export Duty Exemptions
The 2005 OAG report documented fraud, corruption, mismanagement, and maladministration
throughout the forestry sector. However, the report gives most attention to the issue of log export
duty exemptions. It estimated that the revenue forgone from exemptions was around SI$10 million
in 2003 and SI$30 million in 2004. The increase in the volume of logs exported under exemption
between 2003 and 2004 was 163%.
The report documents a large number of deficiencies with the exemption system including
„
the impossibility of verifying if the reforestation and local development projects for which
exemptions are being awarded are actually being implemented;
„
evidence that contracted logging companies are often failing to pass on the full amount of
the exemption to landowning companies;
„
evidence of various problems with the legally mandated functioning and composition of the
committee responsible for granting exemptions;
„
evidence that the former minister of finance was involved in a number of decisions relating
to the granting of exemptions which amounted to conflicts of interest including, in one
instance, a decision involving “his close relative” (OAG 2005, p. 2); and
„
the possible illegality of the minister of finance entertaining appeals of the decisions of the
Exemption Committee and subsequently granting exemptions or varying of the terms of
exemptions granted (with around SI$10 million of exemptions granted in this manner in
2004).
The OAG report does not analyze estimated returns on landowner’s logging licenses under
different types of contractual arrangements with foreign logging companies (such as that carried out
by Price Waterhouse in 1995), nor is such an analysis undertaken here. However, in light of the
ongoing prevalence of such contractual arrangements, particularly the “60/40 plus costs”
arrangement, it is reasonable to assume that logging contractors are continuing to capture a
significant proportion of the forgone tax revenue due to tax exemptions. Price Waterhouse
concluded that
[t]he diversion of the economic rent to the logging contractors and away from
the SI Government and the landowners (who had been the intended
The Political Economy of Logging in Solomon Islands 291
beneficiaries of the tax exemption policy), raises fundamental questions about
the efficacy of the present policy (Price Waterhouse 1995, p. 28).
The Determined Value of Logs
It appears that the determined value of logs (DVL) schedule was introduced to minimize the loss of
export tax revenue due to tax avoidance strategies such as transfer pricing and the underreporting of
log prices. The DVL schedule determines the price upon which export duty is paid according to
species, grade, and log size. 6 The 1995 Price Waterhouse report recommended the introduction of
such a system, but with the important caveat that the determined value should be set under advice
from an international log monitoring and price advisory service (Price Waterhouse 1995, p. xiii).
Under the Customs and Excise Act, the comptroller of customs and excise is responsible for setting
the DVL on advice from the Forestry Department, while the finance minister is responsible for
determining the level of export duties. In practice, however, the DVL has been set by the finance
minister and/or the forestry minister. OAG is of the opinion that these ministerial interventions
“appear to be contrary to the intentions of the Customs and Excise Act” (OAG 2005, p. 56). 7
The DVL system is predicated on the assumption that the determined value will be an
accurate reflection of international market prices for logs. If not, the government forgoes export tax
revenue and this proportion of the economic rent is directly captured by logging companies. The
recent history of the DVL schedule is described in an extraordinary section of the CBSI’s March
2008 Quarterly Review (CBSI 2008a, pp. 17–18). The DVL schedule was not updated between 2003
and 2006 despite the significant increase in international log prices during this period. In late 2006,
the Solomon Islands Government proposed an updated schedule based on international log prices in
mid-2006. However, the introduction of the new schedule was delayed until March 2007 and then
until October 2007, and an interim schedule that contained lower DVL values was employed in its
place. The interim schedule was still being used at the end of 2007. Based on movements in
international market prices, CBSI conservatively estimated that lost government revenue in 2007 due
to the failure to implement a reasonable DVL schedule was SI$80 million.
In 2008, there was a concerted campaign by civil society groups, in particular Transparency
Solomon Islands (TSI), targeting the government’s ongoing failure to update the DVL schedule. In
an April 2008 press statement, TSI estimated that the government was forgoing SI$1 million to SI$2
million a week in export duty revenue due to the undervaluing of log exports (Solomon Times, 11
April 2008). The government responded by announcing a two-step increase in the average DVL, first
from 71 US dollars ($) to $78 per m3 on 1 May, and then to $85 on 1 June. It appears that both of
these schedules were implemented, but that the government, under pressure from the logging
industry, subsequently dropped the average DVL to $79 per m3, where it remained until it was
reduced again to $76.32 in the latest schedule, dated 30 April 2009.8
6
7
8
For most species the duty rate is 25%, rising to 40% for a few of the highest-quality species (CBSI 2008a, p. 17).
The most recent DVL schedule at the time of writing, dated 30 April 2009, which reduced the average DVL for logs from $79
to $76.32 per m3, was signed by Gordon Darcy Lilo in his capacity as acting finance and treasury minister. Lilo is said to hold
direct interests in local logging companies (personal communication from anonymous sources) and it has recently been alleged
that his political party, the Grassroot Network Party, receives funding from foreign logging companies (Solomon Star, 8 October
2009).
The latest reduction could perhaps be justified by recent downward movements in international log prices. However, although
international prices fell significantly in the second (June) quarter of 2009 (by 9.3% according to World Bank price data), they
only fell by 0.7% in the first quarter. This is not commensurate with the reduction in the average DVL of around 3.4% that
was made in April 2009.
292 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Interestingly, the types of threats being made by the logging industry in response to the
2008 increases in the DVL schedule were very similar to those made, and in some cases carried out,
during the 1990s in response to the forestry sector reforms introduced by the Billy Hilly
government. For example, in August 1994 logging companies began to stockpile logs in protest over
the government’s decision to increase the log export duty (Bennett 2000, p. 34). This put immense
strain on revenue at a time when the government was under pressure to increase public sector wages.
The export duty was reduced as part of Mamaloni’s dismantling of Billy Hilly’s reforms following
the collapse of the latter’s government in November 2004 and Mamaloni’s subsequent return to
power. The reduction of the log export duty “immediately released the ‘log jam’ imposed by the
companies” (Bennett 2000, p. 346).
Logging companies, through their representative body the Solomon Islands Forest
Association, threatened to stockpile logs in response to the decision to raise the DVL in 2008
(Solomon Times, 21 May 2009). They also threatened “mass redundancies.” Given the government’s
dependence on revenue from log export duties and the importance of the industry in providing
employment, it is reasonable to assume that such threats would carry significant weight. More
importantly, the recent history of the DVL system demonstrates the extent to which decision making
in relation to the forestry sector remains highly politicized and continues to enable logging
companies to capture a large proportion of the economic rent from logging. In the words of the
auditor-general, writing in relation to the setting of the DVL, “political interference appeared to have
occurred where these prices are deemed unacceptable” (OAG 2005, p. 55).
5. Explaining the Political Economy of Logging
in Solomon Islands
Clearly, there are aspects of the political economy of the forestry sector in Solomon Islands that are
best understood in terms of rational actor models of economic behavior. For their part, the logging
companies have sought to maximize their profits in the context of the regulatory environment
established and enforced by the state and its institutions. Particular policy settings have provided
incentives for the companies to behave in particular ways. The most important example of this is
how companies have responded to successive governments’ policies in relation to the export tax and
exemptions. The tax regime itself has encouraged logging companies to engage in tax avoidance
strategies.
These practices have been abetted by the ineffectiveness of monitoring and enforcement
activities and the susceptibility of forestry officers to bribes and inducements. In more recent years, it
has been rational for the forestry industry to use whatever influence it can to ensure that the
determined value of logs is kept as low as possible. It has also been rational for foreign logging
contractors to enter into contractual arrangements with landowning companies that enable the
former to capture a significant proportion of the export tax exemptions that are intended to benefit
the latter.
Politicians and government officials have also behaved in economically rational ways. Some
politicians have had financial interests in local logging companies and directly benefited from policies
that they implemented, such as those involving export tax exemptions for landowning companies.
There is also substantial evidence suggesting that politicians, government officials, and landowners
have benefited from the proceeds of corruption offered by the foreign logging companies.
The Political Economy of Logging in Solomon Islands 293
However, economic logic alone cannot explain the political economy of the Solomon
Islands’ logging industry. In line with a growing body of literature on the social embeddedness of
economic and political behavior in Melanesia and elsewhere, 9 it is necessary to consider the influence
of social and cultural logic, in addition to economic logic, on the behaviors of elected representatives,
government officials, and landowners. This approach is consistent with the gradual convergence
between proponents of the “new institutional economics” on the one hand and the “new economic
sociology” on the other. This convergence is discussed by Bruce Harris in the context of the
analytical framework employed in his recent political economy analysis of PNG conducted for the
World Bank (Harris 2007). In a footnote to the section in question Harris states,
... the two schools have been gradually converging, and there are few who would
resist the argument that economic activity is grounded in a social matrix and is
conditioned by social processes and understandings. The role of social networks
and cultural understandings is now well recognized as critical in understanding
why and how people behave, even in ostensibly economic spheres (Harris 2007,
p. 9).
Reviewing literature on the relationships between local political cultures and the formal state in
Melanesia, much of which is concerned with PNG, political scientist and historian Michael Morgan
concludes that “pre-existing social forms pervade the state at almost every level” (2005, p. 4). For this
reason, Morgan eschews political science’s conventional preoccupation with the role of formal state
institutions in governing political behavior, in favor of an approach that places political culture at the
center of the analysis. His approach is summarized as follows:
In this paper, the state, its formal institutions and actors take centre stage, but
my intention is to contextualise them within their cultural settings, to move
away from the “excessive emphasis” on institutions. Drawing upon select
anthropological and political science theory, political culture may be defined
loosely as the sets of actions and values that define and guide political behaviour
(Morgan 2005, p. 3).
There is a considerable body of literature, mostly from PNG, supporting the proposition
that the leadership style and behavior of contemporary Melanesian politicians, particularly
Parliament members, strongly resonates with the style and practice of traditional “big man”
leadership (Rynkiewich 2000; Standish 2002; Ketan 2004; Morgan 2005; McLeod 2008).
Rynkiewich, for example, states that “elected politicians usually develop a big-man like base and are
expected to behave like big-men” (2000, pp. 25–26); and McLeod argues that “Melanesian leaders...
are renowned for employing big man tactics while holding formal office (particularly the dispersing
of wealth to immediate followers)” (McLeod 2008, p. 8).10
Importantly, it is the expectations of followers and supporters that “motor the political
economies of resource distribution” (Morgan 2005, p. 5). According to McLeod,
... the voting public perpetuate big man politics by supporting those who
promise immediate material gains and re-electing only those who deliver on
such promises, hence mirroring the ways in which traditional big men garner,
maintain and lose support [original italicization] (2008, p. 8).
9
10
For an overview of the international literature, see Zukin and DiMaggio (1990); and in the particular case of PNG, see Curry (2003).
McLeod, in fact, argues that “indigenous leaders and notions of leadership permeate state institutions” in Melanesia (2008, p. 8).
294 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Once in office, Parliament members tend to use whatever resources they can access to repay
their debts, reward their supporters, and shore up support in their voter strongholds to ensure the
best possible chance of reelection. While all Parliament members in PNG and Solomon Islands have
access to constituency development funds, joining the executive provides further opportunities to
access resources for distribution, and becoming a minister affords the best possible opportunities of
all. According to Sinclair Dinnen, writing in relation to PNG, “[g]overnment ministers [use] their
official powers to appropriate entire national policies or divert public resources to their own personal
agendas” (cited in Morgan 2004, p. 4).
Closely related to the evident influence of traditional big-man politics in the modern
political sphere is the issue of wantokism: “a key cultural practice impacting upon the performance of
indigenous leaders in Melanesia” (McLeod 2008, p. 8). Literally meaning “one talk” in Tok Pisin
(i.e., someone of the same language group), wantokism is often perceived by outsiders as nepotism
and cronyism. While not denying the presence of these practices in Melanesia, recent scholarship
emphasizes the social and cultural basis of the system, highlighting its role in driving reciprocity and
social obligation—and ultimately, social cohesion and corporate identity (Morgan 2005; Morgan and
Mcleod 2006; McLeod 2008).
These scholars also emphasize the “very real” sanctions that are enforced if one fails to meet
one’s social obligations to wantoks, noting that fear of such sanctions “does not disappear upon
assuming office in either politics or the public service, rendering many decisions made in
institutional settings captive to the system” (McLeod 2008, p. 8; also see Morgan 2005). Morgan
argues that while the dynamics of obligation and reciprocity vary in intensity across different parts of
Melanesia, they nevertheless “offer a salutary reminder that Melanesian MPs [members of
Parliament], like all Melanesians, are enmeshed in networks of social and financial obligation, and
that this often influences their actions as elected representatives” (Morgan 2005, p. 5).
Judith Bennett and Tarcisius Tara Kabutaulaka, both of whom have conducted extensive
research on the forestry sector in Solomon Islands, argue that the big-man style of politics and
leadership and the underlying social norms of reciprocity and obligation have interacted with foreign
capital and Asian business practices to shape the political economy of the Solomon Islands’ logging
industry (Bennett 2000; Kabutaulaka 2000, 2006). According to Bennett,
[p]oliticians are particularly vulnerable to pressure from constituents who want
their way and from interests that can pay to have their way or assist a politician
to retain support. Politicians become receivers and distributors in a reciprocity
network, like big men of old, but with an overlay of patronage emanating
primarily from exogenous opportunities (2000, p. 248).
Similar processes are also at play at the local level, influencing the ways in which
communities and individual landowners interact with foreign logging companies. This is
demonstrated by Kabutaulaka:
... some of the money from logging is often used for traditional social
obligations, or for individuals to establish themselves as big-men... the money
has been used to lubricate social relations and fulfil traditional obligations
(Kabutaulaka 2006, pp. 253–254; also see Bennett 2000, p. 333, and Wairiu
2007, p. 241).
The Political Economy of Logging in Solomon Islands 295
6. Political Economy and Donor Policy
In the forgoing section, it was argued that the particular political economy of the logging industry in
Solomon Islands has not been driven only by the greed of the companies, politicians, and landowners
who are involved in it. Traditional cultural and social practices compel politicians, public officials,
and local big men to access resources for distribution to their wantoks and, in the case of politicians,
to their political support bases, both in Parliament and in their constituencies. These logics compel
politicians to join the Executive at all costs and to make policy decisions that benefit their own
commercial interests in the logging industry, as well as those of their wantoks. Social and cultural
logic also renders politicians, public officials, and landowners particularly prone to corruption. In the
absence of strong political parties, bribes and inducements from foreign companies have been used to
grease the wheels of parliamentary fluidity by astute politicians, who in turn have rewarded their
Asian patrons with favorable policy decisions.
There has been no shortage of expert advice about forestry sector reform offered to the
Solomon Islands’ policy makers over the past 20 years or so. It has been the lack of political will, as
opposed to a lack of knowledge and advice, that has allowed unsustainable harvesting rates,
destructive logging practices, the appropriation of timber rights, tax avoidance, and the capturing of
much of the economic rent from the forests by foreign logging companies. One aspect of the lack of
political will relates to the chronic instability of the Executive, which is inimical to the type of longterm policy goals that are required for good forestry management. Parliamentary fluidity has also
enabled commercial interests to influence the formation of the Executive.
In PNG, the desire to strengthen political parties and stabilize the executive arm of
government led to the introduction of the so-called Integrity Law, formally known as the Organic
Law on the Integrity of Political Parties and Candidates (OLIPPAC) in 2001. The introduction of
similar legislation is being considered in Solomon Islands. The literature is divided about the impact
of OLIPPAC in PNG. However, notwithstanding the fact that it appears to have contributed to the
Somare government of 2002–2007 surviving a full term in office—the first government to have done
so since independence—most scholars believe that the law has had little impact, particularly in terms
of changing the underlying political culture that drives party weakness and executive instability. 11
The success of institutional strengthening and electoral engineering initiatives in PNG, such
as the OLIPPAC and the introduction of limited preferential voting, will be constrained by their
limited potential to change the underlying political culture that drives patronage politics. The same
can be said of the likely success of such initiatives in Solomon Islands. There is a growing consensus
among academics, policy makers, and donors that institutional strengthening measures must be
accompanied by efforts to strengthen civil society and generate grassroots demand for good
governance, and that both supply- and demand-side interventions are required in the quest for
improved governance outcomes, not only in Melanesia and other parts of the Pacific, but in
developing country contexts more broadly (Malena et al. 2004; AusAID 2006a, 2006b; Harris 2007;
Haley 2008).
In his political economy analysis of PNG, Harris argues that the behavior of national
politicians will change only in response to a change in expectations at the local level. He suggests the
11
See Morgan (2005), Gelu (2005), Standish (2007), and Fraenkel et al. (2008), all of whom broadly share the opinion that the
success of OLIPPAC has been mixed at best. Reilly (2006) is more sanguine about the impacts of the integrity law. In a recent
assessment, Standish (2007, p. 148) concludes “[w]hether OLIPPAC will be able to fundamentally shift existing patterns of
political behaviour and create a genuinely strong political base for continuity in executive government remains to be seen, but
on present indications that seems unlikely.”
296 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
“promotion of mechanisms and processes by which legitimacy is gradually transferred from primarily
local to broadly based trans-local and, eventually, regional and even national groups” (Harris 2007,
p. 47). Harris points to the emergence of a range of civil society groups, including churches, across
PNG as demonstrative of “integrative local level processes... deepening links across local groups that,
in turn, lead to an extension of legitimacy beyond the clan or village to larger social aggregations”
(2007, p. 48).
The emergence of such groups in PNG and Solomon Islands, along with their composition,
functioning, and relationships with both formal state institutions and non-state actors, have been the
subject of incipient scholarly interest (see Hegarty 2009). However, there is currently a dearth of
fine-grained analytical work examining the internal dynamics of these emerging civil society groups,
the reasons for their apparent success or failure, and their geographical variation. Such analysis could
be supported by donors. Important lines of inquiry revolve around the questions of how and why
some civil society groups have been able to forge wider linkages that transcend clan and tribal
boundaries and rivalries, and the extent to which these successes could be replicated elsewhere.
It is important to acknowledge the limitations of efforts to generate grassroots demand for
good governance. As has been argued above, the behavior of Parliament members and government
officials is significantly determined by the social and cultural contexts in which they and their
wantoks are embedded. History suggests that cultural change is a slow and nonlinear process that is
entangled in broader processes of state and nation building. In a recent article on local governance in
Melanesia, David Hegarty poses two salient questions: Are the various civil society groups that are
emerging evidence of the types of “political and policy processes” that will lead to “deepening
democracy” and a greater sense of nationhood? Or are these processes likely to be thwarted by the
“long-known antipathy to the State of Melanesia’s small-scale, acephalous segmentary societies,
together with the difficulty they have in combining/coalescing for collective action?”(Hegarty 2009,
p. 112). His conclusion is that there is as yet no consensus on these questions among scholars
working on the issues of state and nation building in Melanesia.
Importantly, however, efforts to generate demand for good governance would have the
potential to positively influence the political economy of extractive resource industries, regardless of
the type of resource in question. This is significant in the case of Solomon Islands because the nature
of rent-seeking opportunities will change with the predicted shift in the export base from logging to
mining. A possible scenario is that Parliament members will seek to maintain their patronage
networks by diverting state revenue from mining, particularly windfall revenues if and when they
occur, into constituency development funds and programs over which they have significant control.
This has occurred in PNG where the District Services Improvement Program appropriation
has increased substantially in recent years, from 400,000 kina (K) per district in 2006 to K4 million
in 2007, K6 million in 2008, and K4 million in the 2009 national budget (see Allen 2009, pp. 35–
36). The 89 open-seat Parliament members have considerable de jure and de facto control over these
funds and frequently divert them toward patronage and pork barrelling. The increase in allocations
has been funded from windfall revenues derived from the minerals and petroleum sectors, a result of
high commodity prices in recent years. Interventions aimed at changing voter expectations of
politicians can potentially reduce the subversion of state resources into patronage politics regardless
of the precise nature of the rent seeking involved.
For the relatively short period of time that remains before the predicted exhaustion of
Solomon Islands’ natural forest resource at the end of 2015, donors can continue to advocate for the
adoption of the well-documented reforms required to improve the governance of the forestry sector.
The Political Economy of Logging in Solomon Islands 297
Donors can also support the advocacy work of local groups such as Transparency Solomon Islands.
Another potential role for donors lies in assisting landowners to realize and enforce their rights in the
timber rights determination process. Technical and policy advice will also be required for the
establishment of plantation forestry, which holds significant potential, particularly at the village level
(URS 2006), and to exploit emerging global carbon market–related opportunities such as Reduced
Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation.
7. Conclusion
The forests that have provided the bulk of Solomon Islands’ export revenue since the early 1990s are
rapidly approaching depletion. While “exhaustion estimates” have been inaccurate in the past, it
seems certain that the resource will collapse sooner rather than later. The history of the forestry
sector since the country’s independence in 1978 has been a woeful tale of corruption, greed,
profligacy, patronage, tax avoidance, maladministration, incompetence, and environmental
destruction. The state has forgone hundreds of millions of Solomon Island dollars in potential
revenue due to tax exemptions and the undervaluation and miscategorization of log exports.
While some politicians, public officials, and landowners have benefited from royalties,
profits, and bribes and inducements, it is the foreign-owned logging companies that have
consistently captured the bulk of the economic rent from forest resources. They have achieved this
through a range of tax avoidance practices (including, in recent years, lobbying the government to
keep the determined value of logs unreasonably low) and through the nature of their contracts with
landowning companies. It has been demonstrated that many of the well-documented political
economy factors that characterized the logging industry during the first logging boom of the 1990s
have continued and, in some cases, have intensified during the current boom.
It has been argued that the political economy of logging in Solomon Islands is best
understood with reference to social and cultural influences—as well as economic influences—on the
behavior of elected representatives, government officials, and village big men. These people, like all
Melanesians, are enmeshed in networks of obligation and reciprocity that compel them to access and
distribute resources, and the logging industry has afforded significant opportunity for such
patronage. The indigenous political culture has been overlain with the distinctive business culture of
the Asian loggers and has proven to be highly susceptible to the latter’s venal suasions. This political
economy framework explains the ongoing lack of political will for meaningful legislative reform of
the forestry sector, and goes a considerable way toward explaining the chronic instability that has
characterized politics in Solomon Islands since its independence in 1978.
In addition to continuing to advocate for forestry sector reform and for institutional
strengthening initiatives aimed at improving political stability and representation, donors could focus
their efforts on initiatives with the potential to change the underlying expectations that drive
patronage politics. This is no easy task, and the first steps lie in conducting rigorous analytical work
to better understand the various civil society groups and the “integrative local level processes” that
have been emerging in Solomon Islands and other parts of Melanesia. Efforts to generate grassroots
demand for better governance can potentially reduce patronage-driven rent seeking, regardless of the
resource being exploited. This will be important as the Solomon Islands’ export base shifts from
logging to mining over the next decade or so.
298 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
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302 The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
13 The Atrophied State
A Supply-Side Perspective on Politician
“Slush Funds” in Western Melanesia 1
by Jon Fraenkel
ABSTRACT
Characteristics of Western Melanesian politics—such as the absence of robust political parties, fluid
factional allegiances, frequent changes of government, and high levels of incumbent turnover—
cannot be explained by reference to constituency-level “clientelist rent-seeking.” Politician “slush
funds” in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands have been identified as evidence for such
clientelist perspectives. However, this paper demonstrates historically that fluctuations of politicianallocated government expenditures bore little relation to the electoral cycle, but were instead driven
by the exigencies of holding together fractious governing coalitions. Schemes depended on the
availability of windfall gains from aid or natural resource–intensive industries. Vanuatu resisted
pressures to inflate slush funds owing to lack of similar windfall earnings, although it, too, has
witnessed frequent changes of government, fluid parliamentary allegiances, and characteristic
Melanesian “big-man” styles of politics. Difficulties of building effective states in capital-poor
countries with a heavy reliance on subsistence agriculture and a narrow tax base encourage a broader
personalization of state finances in the region, including use of slush funds. Yet this drains away
funds necessary to strengthen state service delivery and threatens a self-reinforcing atrophy of
Western Melanesian states.
1. Introduction
Funds allocated to politicians for spending in their constituencies have increased markedly in
Western Melanesia over the past decade. Rural Constituency Development Funds in Solomon
Islands, the allocation for members of Parliament (MPs) in Vanuatu, and in Papua New Guinea
(PNG), the district support grants and funds disbursed under Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare’s
District Services Improvement Programme have become major political issues and figure
prominently in civil society criticism of alleged parliamentary “corruption.” For some, these slush
1
I am indebted to Kathy Whimp, Peter Coventry, Anita Jowitt, Ralph Regenvanu, and Derek Brien for their assistance in
sourcing data for Papua New Guinea (PNG), Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu. I am also indebted to Hank Nelson, Bill
Standish, and Ron Duncan for their comments on an earlier version of this paper. The term “slush funds” is used in the title of
this paper following customary use to describe such funds, which commenced in the PNG Finance Department (see Dorney
1990 [2000], p. 270).
304
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
funds are indicative of an emerging clientelist order in which politicians plunder state resources for
delivery to rent-seeking constituents (Australian Agency for International Development [AusAID]
2006, pp. 95–96; Duncan and Nakagawa 2007, pp. 10–13; Kurer 2007). 2 For others, funds
controlled by MPs potentially offer a more effective and accountable mechanism for the delivery of
services to rural areas, replacing ossified, post-colonial, state bureaucracies (Brigg 2009; Fukuyama
2008). Both perspectives imply rural, rather than parliamentary or cabinet level, driving forces
behind the proliferation of MP-controlled funds—a viewpoint queried in this paper. Despite the
topicality of the issue within the region, no study has been undertaken into the emergence,
development, and fluctuations of Melanesian MP discretionary spending aimed at testing these
various hypotheses. 3 This study aims to fill the gap.
What are called in this paper “politician-allocated expenditures” (PAEs) are funds granted to
MPs, whether for local infrastructure projects (roads, schools, clinics, etc.); for cultivating allegiances
or ongoing solidarity (e.g., through selective payment of school fees, medical costs, or handouts of
farm implements or outboard motors); or, more controversially, for MPs’ personal purposes (e.g.,
spending in urban bars or casinos). In theory, politicians are required to comply with public finance
regulations and often to acquit funds, but in practice the only effective sanction against use for
narrowly personal purposes is the general election held every 4 or 5 years, at which over one-half of
incumbents usually lose their seats. There have, however, been efforts to hold MPs accountable for
such spending, either through the creation of local government controls or through supervision of
“corrupt” use of PAEs by national agencies such as the auditor general, ombudsman, or Leadership
Code Commission. In other cases, MPs have themselves sought greater scrutiny—for example,
through publication of annual PAE allocation reports or setting up constituency-level monitoring or
project proposal vetting agencies. 4 However, these responses carry the risk of formalization and
systemization of PAEs in ways that may encourage a personalization of the state.
Information on PAE funding is often difficult to establish accurately. Publicly announced
figures for amounts per MP may differ from budgetary provisions, and budgeted PAE allocations
may be scattered under different headings but aggregated in media reports. Allocated and actual
expenditures may differ, particularly in the earlier stages of PAE schemes before local project
proposal mechanisms are in place. These forms of spending belong to a gray area of government
finance, where incentives exist for concealment, underreporting, or retrospective adjustment.
Budgetary records are often incomplete or grossly inaccurate, and central bank or statistical agency
records of public spending, where they exist, are often confined to general headings. Strictly
speaking, PAEs might be defined as public expenditure at the discretion of the individual legislator;
however, the distinction between discretionary and nondiscretionary funds is often a hazy one, and
there may be a nominal civil service or ministerial signing-off processes. Putatively nondiscretionary
allocations can come under the de facto control of MPs, particularly if local organizations entrusted
with their administration prove to be incompetent, unable to meet regularly, or amenable to MP
pressure. Funds may also not be recorded in government budgets if donors or other benefactors
(such as logging companies or casino operators) make them available directly to politicians, without
going through normal financing channels. Ad hoc funds used by prime ministers ahead of elections
2
3
4
Such perspectives have been influenced by the arguments raised in Keefer and Vlaicu (2007).
Ketan (2007) gives an account of political problems associated with discretionary funding in PNG, but does not explore the
reasons for their introduction or fluctuations across Melanesia.
See, for example, Fred Fono (2007), MP for Central Kwara’e (Malaita) in Solomon Islands. See also the activities of former
Vanuatu speaker, George Wells, discussed in section 5.
The Atrophied State
305
or threatened “no confidence” motions may, afterwards, be carefully concealed in the retrospective
budget “actuals’” and/or initially reallocated from underspent parts of the budget.5
This paper examines explicit state budgetary provisions or dedicated PAEs identified as such
by legislatures, not other projects that may require the MP to sign off before funds are released or
state expenditure diverted to MPs through informal channels (although these are occasionally
identified in the historical narratives below). That said, a core part of the argument in this paper is
that dedicated PAEs are but one high-profile element of a much more pervasive personalization of
the management of state finances in Western Melanesia. Section 2 examines the arguments for and
against PAE schemes and whether such schemes inevitably undermine the building of effective states.
Sections 3 to 5 examine the use of PAEs in PNG, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu. Section 6 situates
PAEs in a broader discussion about the character of post-colonial Melanesian states, looks at their
impact on incumbent MP turnover rates, examines the degree of their synchronization with the
electoral cycle, and assesses the dangers associated with dispensing windfall gains from aid or natural
resource-extractive industries through electoral patronage.
2. The Cases for and against Parliament Member
Constituency Funding
There exists considerable debate about the pros and cons of the use of state funds for MP
constituency spending within PNG, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu. Participants in local branches of
the anticorruption agency Transparency International and in other civil society organizations often
unequivocally condemn PAEs as tantamount to legalized corruption, entailing the syphoning of state
resources either for individual pecuniary gain or to cement patronage-based relationships
(Transparency International 2003; Pelto 2007, p. 61; Ketan 2007, p. 13). In defense of such
schemes, Melanesian politicians regularly point to the intensity of demands by constituents for
personal favors from their elected representatives, and to the large costs incurred by elected MPs (the
complaint is often heard that the MP is considered akin to an automatic teller machine). Although
embezzlement and poor use of such funds are widely acknowledged, indigenous commentators tend
to highlight numerous examples of sensible use of funds in otherwise impoverished local
communities. Whereas government officials are in no way reliant on rural villagers for continued
employment, the constituency MP is obliged to act in a more responsive, and generous, fashion for
fear of losing his or her seat in Parliament. Allocating funds through the local MP is also claimed to
be a more effective vehicle for local service delivery than the centralized bureaucracies of national
governments, which tend to exhaust most of their budgets on paying urban wages and salaries and
lack capacity to extend services to many rural areas. The rise in PAEs is thus viewed as a response to
years of centralized neglect, dilapidated rural infrastructure, and inadequate provision of health and
education services. Conversely, within the public sector, PAEs are often blamed for reinforcing the
poverty of government service delivery by draining away funds needed to pay teachers and health
professionals. 6
5
6
For example, expenditures coming under the vote for the Prime Minister’s office might be listed as “transport,” with actual
expenditure exceeding budgetary provisions and funds transferred from other budgetary headings to make up the shortfall.
Speech by Gairo Onagi, vice chancellor, University of Goroka, to The Australian National University (ANU) Crawford School
of Economics and Government PNG Update, 4 May 2009. In this respect, there are some differences between the three
countries. In Solomon Islands, PAEs are often seen as complementary to public sector service delivery, rather than as an
alternative. MPs avoid “wasting” funds by duplicating services believed to be the responsibility of the central government and
instead focus on filling gaps not covered in the normal government budget.
306
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Growth of PAEs may be damaging for both nation- and state-building processes: legislative
and executive functions become fused, scarce government revenues are diverted, and central planning
is undermined. As Axline (1986, p. 37) noted, “[t]he involvement of parliamentarians in the
distribution of public funds reflects the lack of separation between the roles of policy formulation
and policy implementation in the developing political system of Papua New Guinea.” Of course,
there are dangers associated with an insistence on the “separation of powers,” drawing on an idealized
perception of the European experience from the 17th and 18th centuries onward (Raadschelders and
Rutgers 1996). Even for capital-rich Europe, use of personalized patronage or brokerage at times has
generated important links between weak states and remote populations (Namier 1929 [1970], pp.
70, 161; Blockman 1988, p. 126). Yet, these were informal processes, not legalized provisions, and
they accompanied a gradual strengthening of state bureaucracies in response to war and peacetime
social pressures (Tilly 1990, p. 101–102).
For the capital-poor, post-colonial Western Melanesian states, pressures generating efficient
bureaucracy were weaker, and the longer-run dangers were greater. Windfall gains associated with
external economic or political engagements (entailing aid or natural resource–related inflows) were
instead disbursed in accordance with electoral or parliamentary pressures in contexts where little
revenue could be raised from largely rural and subsistence-oriented populations. Personalization of
state spending might, for this reason, be seen as generating stagnation or deterioration of government
service delivery rather than being a response to weak bureaucracy. While recurrent spending
comprises largely running costs of the ministries (mainly wages and salaries) or grants to local
governments or state-owned enterprises, sizeable parts of the development budget are diverted to MP
funding, diminishing scope for investment in state infrastructure or capital works. 7 The result is an
atrophied state, deprived of capacity to facilitate national development.
Apart from concerns about the quality of service delivery or the impact on the central state,
debate also centers on the political uses of PAE spending. Proposals to increase PAE allocations are
regularly pressed by government backbenchers implicitly or explicitly threatening to club together
with opposition MPs to back “no confidence” votes (as a kind of political blackmail), or are used by
governments to acquire leverage to have legislation passed (Jowitt 2007, p. 606; Ketan 2007, p. 7).
Beleaguered prime ministers feel obliged to respond by granting additional funds or sinecures,
whether through budgeted PAEs or informal payments, or by expanding the number of ministerial
portfolios to provide lucrative jobs for loyal MPs. In theory, PAEs are available to MPs in general; in
practice, politically convenient ministerial logjams or biased acquittal processes have been used to
prevent payments to opposition MPs. 8 In this way, PAEs can become primarily a means of holding
together fractious governing coalitions, even if the courts find—as has occurred in PNG—that legal
payments must also be made to opposition members. 9
At the constituency level, PAEs are regularly distributed to favored communities rather than
through provision of generalized benefits. As Ketan (2004, p. 254) writes of the PNG Highlands, “it
is only natural that MPs and MPAs [members of provincial assemblies] concentrate their efforts on
base vote areas, for instance, by allocating resources such as the Electoral Development Fund to a
7
8
9
In 2009, for example, over 40% of the Solomon Islands and around 17% of the PNG development budget was allocated to MP
discretionary funding. A significant share of the remainder, in both cases, entailed donor-funded projects routed through
government accounts.
In PNG in the early 1980s, for example, no particular bias could be discerned in the distribution of state funds to MPs (see
Hegarty 1983). By the late 1990s, however, the distribution had changed dramatically toward favoring pro-government MPs
(see Ketan 2007, p. 10; Standish 2000, p. 12).
The National. 1999a. Court Orders Govt to Pay Slush Funds. 30 June; and Ketan (2007, pp. 10–11).
The Atrophied State
307
single area rather than the whole electorate as intended.” If so, PAEs may become an instrument of
factional struggle and thus increase the potential for conflict. Reilly, for example, sees MP-controlled
government spending as exacerbating divisions in an already highly heterogeneous setting:
These “slush funds” can be seen as a unique PNG adaptation of the usual budget
expenditure of governments which reinforces both exchange links and a strong focus
on the needs of the constituency. But as an efficient mechanism of government fiscal
policy they are a questionable instrument.... The provision of such direct funding has
more often served to reinforce fractionalisation at the electorate level, as funding is
widely expected to be “payola” from the winning candidate to reward and reinforce
clan support (Reilly 1996, pp. 68–69).
Similarly, Stewart and Strathern warn of inherently divisive repercussions of PNG’s fiscal
empowering of the big-man MPs, and likewise assume that rural community expectations are driving
the disbursal of slush funds:
The individual MP has become a “super big-man,” creating a level of politics that
has eclipsed and/or swallowed other modes of local political activity. But since there
are always losers, there is a further built in tendency for factionalism and hostility.
This form of democracy does not, then, conduce to local stability. Instead, it
increases local tensions. The patronage involved is also intensely local and does not
form an easy basis for the development of national-level identities and loyalties
(Stewart and Strathern 1998, p. 134).
As with the issue of service delivery, these kinds of statements raise significant “cause and
effect” questions. Is it conversely the absence of robust national identities that encourages the focus
on local patronage? Is intense local conflict in the PNG Highlands the result of selective MP
patronage, or does pervasive conflict ensure that any cash made available to MPs is disbursed along
factional lines? After all, the revival of tribal fighting in the PNG Highlands considerably predates
the commencement of PAEs. And is the political impact of PAEs everywhere the same, or are the
consequences in PNG Highlands different from those in coastal areas or on the PNG islands, or in
the Solomon Islands or in Vanuatu?
The claim that Melanesian political patronage is primarily driven by local-level pressures is
also embraced by many other scholars, either because methods of disbursal seem to resemble
customary big man traditions of accumulation and distribution, or because of adherence to rational
choice perspectives regarding Melanesians as “pure material benefit maximisers” (Kurer 2007, p. 41),
or simply because of the absence of alternative theories of the dynamics of Melanesian political power
(Hameiri 2007, pp. 422–423). Kurer (2007, p. 43) argues that
[t]he political process in Papua New Guinea is pervaded by clientelist rent-seeking
where politicians, in exchange for political support, are elected to provide
particularist benefits for their supporters. This leads to a highly fluid and inherently
unstable political system with weak political parties, personalised and parochial
politics, and intense political competition.
Similarly, AusAID’s Pacific 2020 report found clientelist theories relevant for the Pacific
Islands:
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Political competition takes place almost exclusively at the micro or local level. Parties
are weak; competing policies are absent. Voters are wooed by offers of money, jobs
and other help at the individual level. Thus politicians become patrons, their
supporters, clients, and democracy as clientelism or “localism” is observed (AusAID
2006, pp. 95–96).
Such interpretations rely primarily on anecdotal literary evidence of intense MP
responsiveness to local demands, or in some cases survey data indicating voter perceptions that
politicians are expected to deliver individual rewards at the local level. They also assume that local
clientelist arrangements can fruitfully be used to explain the fluidity of allegiances in national
parliaments, even though the most commonly cited reason for high levels of incumbent turnover in
PNG and Solomon Islands is the absence of distribution in, and long absence from, home
constituencies. No robust quantitative analyses exist of the extent to which PAEs trickle down to
local communities, but much contrary anecdotal evidence exists of diversion of PAEs for other
purposes—an interpretation reinforced by numerous court cases dealing with allegations of
corruption. 10 In the absence of solid data covering patterns of disbursal, we can at least examine the
processes of introduction, and subsequent development, of PAE schemes and assess whether those
experiences confirm, or throw into question, the clientelist interpretations.
3. Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea’s PAEs have been repeatedly reincarnated through a succession of schemes:
national development funds in the 1980s, electoral development funds in the 1990s, district support
grants from the late-1990s, and district services improvement programs from 2006 onward. Forms of
disbursal have changed over time, with cash channeled increasingly through the open MP instead of
being routed through the provincial assemblies. The PNG Parliament has 109 seats, 20 of which are
provincial or regional seats, usually occupied by the governor of each province. The other 89 are the
so-called open seats, 84 covering the country’s rural districts and five for the urban electorates. Voters
have two votes: one for an open representative and the other for a provincial representative.
Following the creation of provincial governments in the 1970s, a power struggle ensued, culminating
in the mid-1990s’ reforms of provincial and local governments through the Organic Law on
Provincial Governments and Local-Level Governments. As a result of those reforms, the 89 open
MPs significantly enhanced their position as fiscal power-holders, although without raising matching
locally generated revenues.
The 1980s proved a watershed in the engineering of PNG government finances to sustain
fragile government coalitions. During the 1970s, government funds had been disbursed in rural areas
under the Rural Improvement Programme, but these funds were formally at the disposal of local
government councils, not MPs (Colebatch 1979). MPs obtained greater control over village
economic development funds—entailing Ministry of Commerce assistance for rural business projects
in tandem with loans from the Development Bank of Papua New Guinea—which were introduced
in the mid-1970s. Prime Minister Michael Somare’s use of such funds to strengthen his 1977–1980
10
Over 90% of PNG MPs who faced dismissal after leadership tribunal hearings in 1976–2000 were found guilty of offenses
connected to improper usage of electoral development funds (Transparency International 2003, pp. 20–21). In 2008, Prime
Minister Somare himself was found by the ombudsman to have failed to file annual returns accounting for district support
grants and other discretionary funds, and the case was referred to the public prosecutor (Kantha 2009, pp. 349–373). See also
footnotes 32 and 33.
The Atrophied State
309
government was criticized for initiating a “personalized form of government” by opposition leader
Iambakey Okuk in 1980 (Gordon and Meggitt 1985, p. 183; Hegarty 1998, pp. 339, 345). Under
Somare’s successor, Julius Chan, with Okuk as his deputy, cabinet approved use of “sectoral
development funds” in MPs’ constituencies, a scheme widely seen as the origin of MP slush funds
(Standish 1984, pp. 46–47; Dorney 1990, p. 271). Allocating expenditure to MPs was formally
introduced in the 1984 budget through creation of a National Development Fund of 1.18 million
kina (K). Paias Wingti, who became Prime Minister in 1985, promised to “kill handouts,” but after
a cabinet rebellion he backed down (Dorney 1990, p. 273; Transparency International 2003, pp.
20–21). In his first budget, Wingti increased the National Development Fund from K20,000 to
K40,000 for each MP (Saffu 1987). The sum distributed rose to K60,000 per year by 1987 and rose
again to K100,000 (around $121,000) in 1988 (Ghai and Regan 1992, p. 317n).
Figure 13.1 shows the increase in official PAE funds per open MP under the various
schemes from 1984 to 2010. These data were drawn from the recorded budgetary appropriations
from 1991 onward, and from literary records for earlier years. 11 The figure suggests three booms in
PAE spending: the first in the mid-1990s, the second during 1999–2002, and the third during
2006–2009. Wingti’s third government, which commenced after the 1992 elections, initiated the
first of the three booms as revenues from oil and the Porgera mine were recycled to MPs.
Nevertheless, government remained in deficit and was forced to devalue the kina in 1994. Scope for
MP discretionary funds was restricted in 1997–1998 as a result of restraints on spending
accompanying a World Bank structural adjustment loan in 1995–1996 (Wesley-Smith 1996, p.
431). 12
11
12
Since annual budgets (as distinct from supplementary or emergency budgets) are released in November of the preceding year,
the provision for PAEs is forward-looking.
According to the 1996 budget data, the Rural Action Programme backed by the World Bank initially entailed an increase in
funding to K550,000 per MP, but the amount was reduced to K300,000 in the 1997 budget. I am indebted to Colin Filer for
assistance in tracking down the mid-1990s’ World Bank reports.
310
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Figure 13.1: State Expenditure Allocated to Open Members of Parliament,
Papua New Guinea, 1984–2010
800
Somare
1982–1985
Wingti
1985–1988
Namaliu
1988–1992
State expenditure (K’000 per MP, 1997 prices)
700
Chan
1994–1997
Wingti
1992–
1994
Skate
1997–1999
Morauta
1999–2002
Somare
2002–2010
600
500
400
1992 Election
1987 Election
2002 Election
1997 Election
2007 Election
300
200
100
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
1991
1990
1989
1988
1987
1986
1985
1984
0
Notes: Data for 1991–2010 cover budgetary provisions, except for 1991–1992 when actuals are used. An additional 19 million
kina (K) was appropriated for East Sepik in 2005, but only K1.3 million is recorded as expended. This amount is not included
since it is impossible to establish which of the members of Parliament (MPs) received the additional funds. Records of 2004
include no provision for the National Capital District (NCD) and Sandaun MPs. 1997 records do not indicate any identifiable
provision for the NCD or Bougainville MPs. Some obvious errors have been corrected in the budget data.
Sources: 1991–2010 from Papua New Guinea’s budget papers (various years); 1984–1990 from Standish (1984), Saffu (1987),
and Ghai and Regan (1992).
Amendments to the 1995 Organic Law on Provincial Governments and Local-Level
Governments set the sum to be disbursed to MPs as district support grants at K300,000 for 1998
and K500,000 for subsequent years. District support grants were to be divided into two, with onehalf disposed at the unfettered discretion of the MP and a nondiscretionary half to be disbursed
under the direction of the new Joint District Planning and Budget Priorities Committees (JDP–
BPCs). These committees comprise the heads of local-level governments, with the district
administrator as chief executive officer. MPs chair the JDP–BPCs and control selection of three
nominated members. Open electoral districts usually have 3–5 local-level governments (Edmiston
2002, p. 224). 13 Thus the open MP in most cases has an inbuilt majority and is also often able to
influence the selection of local-level government presidents. A 1996 amendment to the law removed
the provincial governor from the JDP–BPCs, in the process further strengthening the position of the
open MP. Surveys have found a mixed record as regards the performance of the JDP–BPCs: some
meet fairly regularly and obtain considerable authority; others meet only irregularly, or hold
meetings in urban Port Moresby and not in the relevant constituency, or act merely as instruments
under the personal control of the open representative (May 2005; Haley 2005). As an “organic” law,
this legislation is entrenched in the constitution, ensuring that the K500,000 district support grant
per MP would be difficult to alter or abolish.
13
A total of 284 local governments cover 87 districts, excluding Bougainville and the National Capital District, which are
governed under alternative arrangements.
The Atrophied State
311
The second peak in PAE funding in 1999 again bore little relationship to the electoral cycle,
but was connected to the expiry of 1997–1999 Prime Minister Bill Skate’s statutory 18-month grace
period (during which no confidence votes are disallowed). 14 Struggling for political support ahead of
an impending challenge, Skate raised PAEs by an additional K89 million, or by K1 million per open
MP. Despite this action, his parliamentary support dwindled and he resigned ahead of the threatened
no confidence challenge in July 1999. The incoming Morauta government (1999–2002) faced
pressure from the World Bank, as part of the conditions accompanying a second structural
adjustment loan, to rescind Skate’s K89 million hike in PAEs. Fearing the political implications of
reversing the increase, the Morauta administration instead settled for tightening up guidelines for
fund administration through the Office of Rural Development and in 2002, once a no-confidence
challenge had become unlikely, 15 converted the K89 million into funding for fee-free education,
hoping that this might prove a vote-winner. That proved not to be the case. Morauta’s People’s
Democratic Party fared poorly in a troubled election in 2002, which saw the highest rate of turnover
of incumbent MPs (70.6%) ever witnessed in PNG.
The third peak in PAE funding, over 2006–2009, was triggered by buoyant government
finances arising from a logging and mineral resources boom. Funds per MP appropriated through
the budget ballooned under a new District Services Improvement Programme in 2007–2008, as the
government responded to unexpected surpluses by recycling cash to MPs. Allocations per open MP
peaked in 2008 at K6.5 million (roughly equivalent to $2.3 million). Initially, a substantial share of
District Services Improvement Programme funds was disbursed into trust accounts, but 2009–2010
saw a rapid drawdown of the trust accounts. 16 There is an increasing trend of decentralization toward
the fiscal empowering of open MPs, as well as (in theory) the local-level governments and JDP–
BPCs. As then Deputy Prime Minister Puka Temu stated in 2007, the Somare government has a
goal to “develop a long-term plan for moving the public service machinery to the districts” (Temu
2007). Anticipated revenues from the large liquefied natural gas project being developed in the
Southern Highlands are to be used to fund further increases in the monies distributed through open
politicians. 17
4. Solomon Islands
Three-time Prime Minister Solomon Mamaloni (1981–1984, 1989–1993, 1994–1997) was
responsible for introducing PAEs in Solomon Islands. Solomon Islands Communities and Provincial
Special Assistance funds were introduced in 1989 to support projects initiated by the area councils, 18
but after revelations of abuse they were abolished by the incoming Hilly government in 1993. 19
14
15
16
17
18
19
In 1991, the 6-month ”grace period” after a general election or the election of a Prime Minister, during which there cannot be a
vote of “no confidence,” was extended to 18 months.
During the last 12 months of a parliament’s 5-year term, a successful vote of “no confidence” entails a dissolution of parliament
and an early general election. There has never been a “no confidence” vote, successful or otherwise, during that final 12 months.
The Asian Development Bank reported in August 2010 that PNG’s trust funds were drawn down in 2009 from K3.5 billion to
K1.1 billion (ABC Pacific Beat 2010).
At a meeting of the governing National Alliance Party in October 2009, Arthur Somare, state enterprises minister and son of
Prime Minister Michael Somare, who was closely involved in negotiations over the huge liquefied natural gas project, told those
attending that the project would deliver District Services Improvement Programme payments for the next 20 years (The
National 2009).
Speech by Finance Minister Christopher Abe, reading of the 1990 Appropriation Bill, 2 May 1989.
Solomon Islands 1994 budget speech by Finance Minister Andrew Nori on 13 December 1993, which announced abolition of
a range of grants to provincial governments and local authorities. On abuses, see the comments of Sir Allen Kemakeza in the
312
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
Unlike PNG, Solomon Islands has only constituency MPs—50 of them since 1997. Provincial
premiers do not hold seats in Parliament. The political incentives were thus to fund MPs, not area or
provincial council representatives. Area councils were abolished in 1996 and 1997.
In the run-up to the 1993 election, Mamaloni introduced a “special discretionary fund” of
100,000 Solomon Islands dollars (SI$) per MP. In an account of that election, Premdas and Steeves
(1994) described the impact:
An issue with a profound impact on the campaign was a decision by the Mamaloni
government in the dying days of the last parliament in March 1993 to award each
sitting MP a SI$100,000 “Discretionary Fund” to distribute in his or her
constituency for development purposes. This “discretionary fund” became a tool for
MPs to cement their local support. Sitting MPs engaged in blatant distribution of
development largesse in the form of outboard motors, generators, boats and canoes,
iron roofing, etc. among supporters and church groups considered crucial in each
constituency. The matter became a heated issue during the campaign.
Commentators, private citizens and the media all derided the opportunistic nature of
the fund's introduction. It placed challengers to sitting MPs at a severe disadvantage.
… What had begun as a contest between SIGNUR [Solomon Islands Government
of National Unity and Reconciliation] and the alternative party formations ended as
a contest between the ins and the outs, sitting MPs no matter what their party
affiliation and those who sought to displace them. By election day, cynicism seemed
widespread (p. 52).
Despite the 1993 handouts, Mamaloni narrowly lost the election to a loose reformist
coalition led by Francis Billy Hilly. Hilly’s short-lived government converted the special
discretionary fund into a community development fund and increased the sums allocated to
SI$200,000 per constituency. However, he was ousted in a no-confidence vote in 1994. One of the
MPs associated with Mamaloni’s rival SIGNUR faction, Sam Alasia, openly acknowledged that
“cheque or cash lobbying by both camps was at its height during this period” (Alasia 1997, p. 13).
Joses Tuhanuku, forestry minister in Billy Hilly’s government, accused logging companies of
masterminding the defeat of the National Coalition Partnership government, and identified ethnic
Malaysian Robert Goh as the “bagman” carrying cash to entice defectors (Bennett 2000, p. 345;
Dauvergne 2001). Mamaloni returned to office and community development fund payments of
around SI$200,000 per MP were still being distributed ahead of the 1997 elections (Cnossen 2000,
p. 163).
National Parliament of Solomon Islands, Daily Hansard, 8 February 2007. www.parliament.gov.sb/files/hansard/8th_session/
3rd_meeting/thursday8february2007.htm
The Atrophied State
313
Figure 13.2: Solomon Islands Constituency-Level Grants, 1989–2010
(Index 2000 = 100)
300
Hilly
1993–1994
Mamaloni
1989–1993
Mamaloni
1994–1997
Sogavare
2000–2001
Ulufa'alu
1997–2000
Kemakeza
2001–2006
Rini
April 2007
Sogavare
Sikua
2006–2007 2007–2010
Constituency-level grants (SI$'000)
250
200
1993 Election
1998 Election
1997 Election
2008 Election
2001 Election
150
100
50
2009
est
2010
est
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
1991
1990
1989
0
est = estimate.
Notes: Asterisks show budget data points. Years 1989–1992 interpolated on the assumption of continuation of Solomon Islands
Communities and Provincial Special Assistance grants. Years 1993–1996 based on literary records estimating SI$200,000 per
members of Parliament. From 1997 onward, all data is from budgetary appropriations.
Source: Adapted from Coventry (2009) and updated using the Solomon Islands government’s 2010 development estimates.
Like the short-lived Billy Hilly government, the incoming 1997–2000 Ulufa’alu
government—despite its reformist orientation and hostility to “Mamaloni politics”—increased what
became known as Rural Community Development Funds (RCDF) 20 to SI$300,000 per member in
the 1998 budget and to SI$370,000 in 2000. Increases in 1998–1999 were funded by aid from PNG
and Taipei,China, but PNG aid was halted as a result of the fiscal crisis faced by the incoming
Morauta government in PNG in 1999. 21 After 1999, RCDF spending became reliant on a boom in
aid from Taipei,China. An uprising on Guadalcanal, commencing in late 1998, severely weakened
the Ulufa’alu government and led to the displacement of around 20,000 Malaitan settlers from rural
parts of the island, many of whom relocated to the capital, Honiara (also on Guadalcanal). In
retaliation, a rival militia group known as the Malaitan Eagle Forces emerged, and on 5 June 2000 it
overthrew Ulufa’alu’s government in a joint operation with the heavily Malaitan-dominated Police
Field Force. By the end of that month, a new government led by Manasseh Sogavare had been
elected—nominally in conformity with the 1978 Constitution but in fact in thrall to the Malaitan
Eagle Forces militants.
20
21
Over time the “C” in the RCDF acronym has morphed from “Community” to “Constituency.”
Solomon Islands government development budget estimates, 1998, 2000; Government of Solomon Islands, 1998 budget
speech by Finance Minister Manasseh Sogavare on 16 April 1998; The National 1999b.
314
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
The consequences for government finances were severe. The 2000–2001 Sogavare
government defined its “justice before peace” program by handouts of large sums of money in
“compensation” to aggrieved parties, including provincial representatives and militia leaders. A
process of systemic extortion continued in 2000–2001 funded by a $25 million loan from the
Export–Import Bank of Taipei,China. 22 Sogavare also increased PAE funding to SI$400,000 for
each of the 50 MPs in 2001, but the collapse of government finances limited scope for PAEs during
subsequent years. Elections in December 2001 resulted in Sir Allen Kemakeza replacing Sogavare as
Prime Minister, but the militia leaders remained the key behind-the-scenes power brokers and they,
rather than the politicians, received most of what little money the government had available to
distribute. Judged from the budget records, amounts allocated fell to SI$10,000 per MP in 2002 and
remained at SI$20,000 per MP in 2003 and 2004 (see Figure 13.2).
The Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI)
commenced in July 2003, which entailed deployment of Australian advisors and line personnel into
key positions in the Ministry of Finance, the treasury, and other core oversight institutions, as well as
the police force and prisons. Contrary to reports that PAE expenditures decreased after RAMSI’s
arrival, 23 total politician-controlled spending surged under the Kemakeza (2001–2006), Sogavare
(2006–2007), and Sikua (2007–2010) governments. There were several reasons for this. First,
although RAMSI tightened controls over the finance ministry, the treasury, and the recurrent
budget, the development budget is separately administered under the Ministry of Development,
Planning and Aid Coordination with minimal RAMSI input. Second, even if the RAMSI influence
at that ministry had been greater, this might have influenced process but not the level of funding
since RCDFs are appropriated through Parliament. Third, Taipei,China, which is not a participant
in the RAMSI operation, funded three aid programs directed at 50 MPs: the RCDF (SI$20 million,
or SI$400,000 per MP in 2009); the Constituency Micro-Projects Fund (SI$10 million, or
SI$200,000 per MP in 2009); and the Millennium Constituency Development Fund (SI$20
million, or SI$400,000 per MP in 2009). The leverage exerted by RAMSI is therefore restricted.
Nevertheless, there have been efforts to introduce legislation to bring oversight of PAEs more
explicitly under the Office of the Auditor General.
As part of the 2006–2007 Sogavare government’s “bottom–up” and “holistic” strategy,
additional annual spending of SI$50 million, or on average SI$1 million per constituency, was
devoted to rural development under the Rural Constituency Livelihoods Fund. 24 The program was
continued under the 2007–2010 Sikua government. Expenditures require the endorsement of MPs,
but some oversight controls remain within the Ministry of Rural Development, with the Sikua
government planning for those ministerial controls also to apply to RCDF disbursals in future. 25
Drawing on the Morauta government experience in PNG, American political scientist Francis
Fukuyama, serving as a consultant for the World Bank, urged a simultaneous abolition of the RCDF
and school fees (Fukuyama 2008, p. 25). In early 2009, the Sikua government abolished school fees
22
23
24
25
For details, see Fraenkel (2004b, pp. 95–96, 105–106, 122–126).
Hameiri (2009, p. 79) claims that “RAMSI’s various programmes have made the transfer of such funds increasingly difficult
and thus reduced the reliance of politicians on deep-reaching patronage networks.”
Speech by Planning and Aid Coordination Minister Gordon Darcy Lilo in Hansard (Solomon Islands) on 3 October 2006, in
which the new rural development funds are to be disbursed via the “government’s constituency development model.”
www.parliament.gov.sb/files/hansard/8th_session/2nd_meeting/tuesday3october2006.pdf
Comments of Deputy Prime Minister Fred Fono in Hansard (Solomon Islands) on 5 March 2009.
The Atrophied State
315
for primary school students and for the first 3 years of secondary school, but without any substantial
reduction of RCDF spending.
Other funds that are accessed by MPs also exist in Solomon Islands, either under formal
oversight provisions or reliant on informal channels.26 While the RCDF, the Constituency MicroProjects Fund, the Millennium Development Fund, and the Rural Constituency Livelihoods Fund
all entail at least some decision-making role for the 50 MPs, other projects funded through the
Ministry of Planning, Development and Aid Coordination often short-cut established project
appraisal procedures, and MPs as local power brokers can exert considerable influence over their
disbursal. As Coventry (2009, pp. 4–5) shows in his analysis of 2004–2008 development budget
project proposals, official deadlines were rarely met because the all-important unofficial deadlines
were cabinet meetings where decisions were made according to political imperatives. Development
spending also peaked ahead of the defeat of the Sogavare government in late 2007, as the Prime
Minister sought to hold together a volatile coalition and avoid breakaways by ministers or
backbenchers. Studies of the political diversion of state spending that focus only on formalized MP
slush funds run the risk of neglecting other forms of state project funding for which official
assessment procedures can be circumvented in the interests of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.
Survey data reporting expectations that MPs assist constituents have been used as evidence
of strong politician responsiveness to local pressures or aspirations for “development” (for PNG, see
Kurer 2007, p. 41), but these surveys usually provide little indication of patterns of PAE
distribution. The annual RAMSI-funded Solomon Islands People’s Survey, for example, entailed
interviews with 5,035 people across the country in 2009 and asked respondents (who were allowed
multiple answers) what they see as the main job of an MP: 41.7% responded that it was to “assist
those who voted for him;” 37.5% to “get better conditions for the constituency;” 16.2% to “govern
the country;” and 44.9% to “represent the constituency in Parliament.” That such a large percentage
emphasized the provision of local assistance is probably not unique to Melanesia, but it tells us little
about the extent of trickle down.
Another question asked respondents whether RCDFs were spent in the respondent’s
community, to which only 35.3% responded “yes,” 42.9% “no,” and 21.3% “do not know” (ANU
Enterprise 2009). Of those who responded “yes,” 23.8% thought that funds were being misused or
given to individuals, while 79.3% thought that they were being spent on community projects.
Matching up the two responses implies that only 28% thought that PAEs were being used for
community projects in local areas (although it is certainly possible that a gulf exists between
perception and reality). Further research is needed on the extent and character of PAE local-level
distribution. However, what evidence is available, as well as the historical approach pursued in this
paper, suggests that the key driving forces are in Parliament, not out in the rural constituencies.
26
“Grants paid yearly to MPs are only the tip of the iceberg in Solomon Islands,” according to former MP and journalist Alfred
Sasako. “MPs have easy access to other funding sources, mostly known to MPs only. Take for example, a $10 million grant
provided by [Taipei,China] last year to revive the nation’s livestock industry... The funds were administered by the Department
of Agriculture and Livestock. As it turned out, funds were disbursed among mostly government ministers and backbenchers in
the hope of keeping the coalition together” (Sasako, undated). This claim was confirmed by former Foreign Minister Patterson
Oti in Parliament on 5 March 2009 when he mentioned “fisheries projects, forestry related projects or agriculture related
projects, which are for constituencies but members of Parliament are also required to endorse all applications.”
316
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
5. Vanuatu
Like PNG and Solomon Islands, Vanuatu has a political history of factional splintering and frequent
floor-crossing and changes of government, at least since 1991. At independence in 1980, a schism
between Walter Lini’s anglophone Vanua’aku Pati and the francophone Union of Moderate Parties
generated a reasonably robust two-party system. The Vanua’aku Pati retained control of government
during the 1980s, but by the end of the decade severe schisms emerged in the party. In 1991, Lini
was ousted in a no-confidence vote, and there were a succession of 13 short-lived coalition
governments from 1991 to 2000. The Vanua’aku Pati and the Union of Moderate Parties both
splintered and numbers of candidates and parties soared (Van Trease 2005, pp. 316, 321).
Controversies over the perks of holding office became the main reason for the collapse of
governments, which Van Trease identifies with a “reawakening bigman style of politics” (Van Trease
2005, p. 325). Despite the obvious incentive to hold together loose coalitions by disbursal of state
funds, Vanuatu did not experience a similar inflation of PAEs. Governments have been reluctant to
concede substantial increases; and the legal constraints on pro-government backbenchers and
opposition members clubbing together to force increases have for the most part proved effective.
Budgetary processes are less personalized than in PNG and Solomon Islands, and relevant legislation,
such as the Vanuatu Public Financial Management Act, is stronger than that prevailing in PNG.27
Vanuatu does have a budgetary provision, called the MP allocation, to “enable the Members
of Parliament to participate in the level of their respective constituencies in the development of the
community projects.” 28 This provision initially appeared in the 1993 budget, and in real terms
remained reasonably steady across 1993–2010. It stood at VT117 million or, on average, VT 2.25
million per member in 2009. 29 In addition, MPs have access to significant allowances as supplements
to salaries, covering “subsistence,” “touring,” and “sitting” allowances, as well as gratuities for each
year served in Parliament. 30 For 2009, such allowances—including those for the various
parliamentary committees—amounted to VT223.7 million or VT4 million per MP. Figure 13.3
shows also the overall cost of Parliament from 1980 to 2010. This cost remained reasonably steady
during the 1980s. After the onset of coalition government in 1991, it rose in response to increased
expenditure on holding together fractious governing coalitions and keeping pro-government
backbenchers in line. Peaks in 2000–2002 and 2008 were connected with substantial salary increases
for parliamentarians. 31
27
28
29
30
31
I am indebted to Nikunj Soni, executive director of the Vanuatu-based Pacific Institute of Public Policy, for this point (personal
communication 7 May 2010).
Republic of Vanuatu. 2003 Budget Narratives (English). p. 10.
Government of the Republic of Vanuatu. Budget 2009. Vol. 1, p. 16. The 2009 Members’ Expenses and Allowances Act
provides for VT2 million per member per year, but limits projects to VT1 million and requires acquittals before disbursal of
successive tranches. (I am indebted to Ralph Regenvanu for forwarding a copy of the legislation.)
In the 1990s, the Prime Minister also had access to a community development fund. Under the Casino Control Act of 1993,
casinos are required to pay 15% of their gross profits into public funds (www.paclii.org/vu/legis/consol_act/cca166/). However,
in the subsequent decade the appointment of a regulator used up most of the resulting funds in administrative costs and so cut
off this source of spending by the Prime Minister’s office.
Budgetary data is not available for 2001–2002, and figures are interpolated for those years, so the timing of that increase is
uncertain. The rise in 2008 is due to a substantial increase in the sums recorded under “procedure and legislative affairs,”
covering salaries and associated allowances to MPs.
The Atrophied State
317
Figure 13.3: State Expenditure on the MP Allocation and Parliament,
Vanuatu, 1980–2010
600
Election
Election
Election
Election
Election
Election Election
Election
State expenditure (Vt million, 2006 prices)
500
400
Cost of
Parliament
300
200
MP
Allocation
100
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
1991
1990
1989
1988
1987
1986
1985
1984
1983
1982
1981
1980
0
GDP = gross domestic product, MP = member of Parliament, Vt = vatu.
Notes: The MP allocation was recorded under the Prime Minister’s office in 1993–1995, and then under the parliamentary
appropriation. The cost of Parliament adjusted to include the MP allocation for 1993–1995. Data adjusted for inflation using
the Vanuatu Ministry of Finance 2006 GDP deflator, extrapolated backward with assistance from Nikunj Sony. Asterisks indicate
data points. Data do not include figures for “political gratuities” shown under the appropriation for the Prime Minister’s office
at VT23 million for 1993, VT24.7 million for 1994, VT16.5 million for 1995, and VT18 million for 1996 (around one-third of the
level of the MP allocation), because there were errors in the calculation of these disbursals that were subsequently reversed.
Source: Republic of Vanuatu 1980–2010 budgets.
As in PNG and Solomon Islands, there has been pressure for greater accountability in
Vanuatu. Intervention by the ombudsman has uncovered cases of abuse of MP allocation funds. 32
Allegations of corruption have also centered on use of the Prime Minister’s Community
Development Fund. 33 Speaker George Wells required MPs to deliver annual report on uses of MP
allocation funds. 34 In February 2009, an attempt to double the MP allocation to VT4 million,
supported both by the opposition and government backbenchers, was passed by the Vanuatu
Parliament by 28 votes to 18, but was ruled unconstitutional by Speaker Wells, drawing on the
provision that “no motion for the levying or increase of taxation or for the expenditure of public
32
33
34
Office of the Ombudsman, Vanuatu (2002, 2003).
See comments of Justice C.N. Tuohy in Public Prosecutor v Leo (2008): “One thing that does come out of these trials is the
misuse of MP allocation cheques. They are not the personal property of the MP, they are held in trust for the MP’s community,
not to be sold, bartered or given as security for the purposes of the MP.” (Supreme Court of Vanuatu [2008].
Office of the Ombudsman, Vanuatu (2003).
Daily Post (Vanuatu) (2008a, 2008b).
318
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
funds shall be introduced unless it is supported by government.” 35 The revised 2009 legislation for
the first time requires MPs to account for MP allocation spending, making disbursements
conditional on the supply of receipts and acquittals for previous tranches. 36
6. Comparative Perspectives
The data used in Figures 13.1–13.3 are approximations using available budget data. Politician
spending drawn from nominally depersonalized parts of the budget, appropriations shifted
retrospectively from one budget header to another, or inaccuracies in the records will not be reflected
in the dataset. Additional MP-specific allocations by prime ministers, as regularly used in PNG, are
also not included in the dataset. Using the data from Figures 13.1–13.3, Table 13.1 compares the
costs of schemes operating in PNG, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu in 2009. It shows the local
currency value of schemes, their share of state expenditure, and their value per MP, converted into
United States (US) dollars for comparative purposes.
Table 13.1: State Expenditure Formally Allocated to Individual Members
of Parliament in Western Melanesia, 2009
Local Currency (in million)
Papua New
Guinea
Solomon Islands
Vanuatu
Share of State
Expenditure
Converted per
Representative
(%)
($ million)
Per
Representative
Aggregate
K4.5a
K430.5b
5.5
$1.80
SI$2.0
SI$100
6.2
$0.28
VT2.25
VT117
0.9
$0.02
K = kina, SI$ = Solomon Islands dollar, VT = vatu, $ = US dollar.
a
Figure for the 89 Open members of Parliament (MPs). The 20 provincial MPs received K1.5 million per
constituency in 2009.
b
Including both amounts allocated to provincial governors and Open MPs.
Sources: See Figures 13.1–13.3.
The Vanuatu MP allocation scheme costs less than 1% of state expenditure and is only a
tiny fraction of the schemes of its western neighbors. While the PNG scheme is over six times larger
than that in Solomon Islands in terms of US dollars (owing to its larger size), it accounts for a
slightly lower share of government spending. Use of 2009 as a benchmark year is reasonably
representative of current levels of PAE spending for Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, but not for PNG
where there was a substantial bell curve during 2006–2009. In its peak year, 2008, the PNG scheme
was equivalent to 9.3% of state expenditure, or 44.0% of PNG development spending.
In summary, (i) the sums involved in US dollar terms were much larger in PNG than in
Solomon Islands, and much larger in Solomon Islands than in Vanuatu; and (ii) the Vanuatu
scheme’s share in state expenditure is much smaller than in PNG and Solomon Islands. It is unlikely
that these conclusions would be significantly altered if we had used actual, rather than budgeted,
PAE data. Now let us turn to a broader analysis of trends in politician discretionary spending and
their links with the electoral cycle.
35
36
Daily Post (Vanuatu) (2007, 2009).
Republic of Vanuatu, Bill for the Parliament (Member’s Expenses and Allowances) (Amendment) Act of 2009. (I am indebted
to Ralph Regenvanu for supplying a copy of this legislation.)
The Atrophied State
319
7. Concluding Discussion
In Western Melanesia, only rudimentary state institutions were in place in the twilight of the
colonial era, with the bulk of populations remaining beyond the reach of the state. Electoral
democracy and a legal apparatus were left, modeled on institutions in the capital-rich countries, but
alongside weak bureaucratic structures—generating incentives for resort to electoral patronage.
Unlike much of Africa, formation of governments via regular elections continued in Western
Melanesia, but without generating mass-based political parties or even, for the most part, robust
party organizational machines. Electoral contests were instead decided based on highly localized
factors: kinship, clan, or church linkages, or other networks, or, importantly, animosities, competing
big man authority systems, and “money politics.” In the urban capitals, parliaments were sites of
factional struggles, which, although often intense, rarely followed clear ideological divisions. Prime
ministers could use personalized forms of authority to build and sustain coalitions and consolidate
control across the top echelons of the public sector, but constitutions and court rulings everywhere
imposed parameters that were difficult, if not impossible, to breach. Even without those legal
influences, prime ministers remained vulnerable. Parliamentary sittings regularly centered on
avoiding no confidence votes, triggering formal or informal resort to public finances to procure and
sustain the loyalty of government-aligned MPs.
Increasing resort to electoral patronage in PNG and Solomon Islands during the 1990s and
2000s was not indicative of the construction of classic patron–client systems, such as those found in
Southern Europe or parts of Africa. 37 Voter allegiances remained too fickle, conditional, and
transient to be usefully called clientelist, while ministers retained too much authority, autonomy, and
independence to be sensibly described as the “clients” of prime ministers. There is little correlation
between the fluctuations in PAEs and the electoral cycle—with the exception of the introduction of
special discretionary funds ahead of the 1993 Solomon Islands election (although this, too, was
primarily an attempt to ensure continuity of Mamaloni’s Solomon Islands Government of National
Unity and Reconciliation).
More frequently, substantial increases in MP discretionary funding occurred after general
elections, as prime ministers sought to hold together loose and fractious governing coalitions, hoping
to survive a full term in office. 38 Increasing costs of Parliament in Vanuatu in 2000–2002 and 2008
may appear tuned to the electoral cycle, but these were due to increased salary costs and expenditure
on the committees, not an increase in the MP allocation. PAEs were only one part of a broader
personalization of the management of state funds to keep coalitions in office. In PNG, the timing of
hikes in MP allocations was influenced by that country’s post-1992 18-month grace period during
which there cannot be a no-confidence vote. In the Solomon Islands, where no such grace periods
existed, development spending more broadly was found to be influenced by cabinet efforts to retain
the loyalty of backbenchers ahead of threatened no confidence motions. Thus even reformist
coalitions, defined by hostility to “Mamaloni politics,” like those headed by Francis Billy Hilly in
1993–1994 and Bartholomew Ulufa’alu in 1997–2000, were not immune from pressures to resort to
patronage to prop up fractious governing coalitions, even though they sought to more closely
regulate the log export industry, reduce corruption, and relieve national indebtedness.
37
38
On clientelist systems in Africa, see Lemarchand (1988, pp. 153, 155) and Van de Walle (2007, pp. 66–67).
As Ketan (2007, p. 7) found with regard to PNG, “all increases were in response to pressures from the government
backbenches” (emphasis added).
320
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
The key precondition for the substantial expenditure on PAEs in Western Melanesia was
not the aspiration of rural peoples for short-run welfare gains but the availability of significant
revenue from aid or foreign-controlled natural resource–based industries. In PNG, this was provided
by funds acquired from logging companies and mineral resource booms in the early 1990s and
2000s. The exception was 1997–1999, with PNG Prime Minister Bill Skate’s 1999 allocation of
K89 million to open MPs, but this was financed through an unsustainable increase in debt finance.
In Solomon Islands, it was aid from PNG and then, increasingly, Taipei,China that fueled payouts
to MPs. Vanuatu had neither access to large windfall revenues from mineral extraction industries nor
significant inflows of fungible aid, since assistance from the People’s Republic of China tended to
entail labor and materials sourced from outside the country rather than open-ended budget
support. 39
In the absence of any threat of external war or internal rebellion, PAEs may be subject to a
ratchet effect. For cash-starved villagers with little access to government services, delivery of PAEs in
the run-up to elections was one of the few mechanisms for gaining access to government funds.
Consequently, from the longer-serving politicians’ standpoint, any reduction may seem a sure route
to electoral defeat. At the constituency level, returning incumbents regularly rely on distribution of
goods or services—such as outboard motors, farming equipment, solar power panels, payments of
school fees, or even imported foods—or cash handouts. Big increases in PAEs in response to windfall
gains thus appear irreversible, even if the security these offer is only fleeting. In the Solomon Islands’
1993 election, incumbent turnover fell to 14.9% in the wake of Mamaloni’s introduction of special
discretionary grants. Subsequent governments raised the sums disbursed, but incumbent turnover
nevertheless rose to 38% in 1997 and to 52% in 2001, suggesting that PAEs may be subject to a law
of diminishing returns.
Prime Minister Skate’s K89 million “social and rural development funds” in 1999 were
recast as educational expenditures before the 2002 election, in which 71% of incumbents lost their
seats, an all-time high. Prime Minister Somare’s hike in disbursals during 2006–2008 might have
diminished incumbent turnover slightly at the 2007 polls, but at 60% it was above the historic
average. 40 The attraction of PAE spending may be strong for prime ministers wanting to cultivate
loyal MPs or secure passage of legislation, but it does not offer a secure passport to sustained
employment for the MPs themselves.
Substantial increases in MP funding have neither prevented loose coalition governments
from being ousted (e.g., Hilly in 1994 in Solomon Islands or Skate in 1999 in PNG) nor made
incumbent MPs more secure. For this reason, MP pressure to increase PAEs may appear odd: why
expand political patronage when recipient electorates have such shifting loyalties and when it gives
no clear electoral advantage? In theory, that incumbent politicians disburse state funds is no
disincentive to switching sides if the voter knows that new MPs will have access to the same level of
formal funding. In practice, careful use of PAEs by incumbents can make reelection likely. Those
who distribute poorly, or not at all, are unlikely to be reelected. Incumbent MP turnover averaged
47.7% in the six PNG elections from 1977 to 2002, 40.9% in the seven Solomon Islands elections
between 1980 and 2006, but only 21.6% in the seven Vanuatu elections between 1983 and 2004. 41
39
40
41
Assistance from the People’s Republic of China is, at times, provided directly to MPs in Vanuatu, but this money does not go
through normal budgetary processes.
Data from the PNG 2007 elections were, at the time of writing, still not officially available. The 60% figure is from Bill
Standish (personal communication, 23 February 2010). For earlier data, see Fraenkel (2004a).
Author’s elections database.
The Atrophied State
321
In other words, the Melanesian country with the lowest level of PAE had the lowest incumbent
turnover rate.
Characteristic features of Western Melanesian political order—such as the absence of robust
political parties, fluid factional allegiances, frequent changes of government, and high levels of
incumbent turnover—cannot sensibly be explained by reference to intense localism or constituencylevel clientelist rent seeking. These characteristics generally predated the introduction of PAEs and
themselves generated obvious incentives for expanding MP entitlements through alliances between
government backbenchers and opposition members (as well as incentives for the proliferation of
ministerial portfolios and other sinecures). Vanuatu proved able to resist pressures to inflate PAEs
during the 1990s and 2000s, although party splintering was even more marked, floor crossing was
even more frequent, and changes of government more frequent than in PNG or Solomon Islands.
Multilateral donor organizations preparing budgetary support packages have, in the past,
included among loan conditions the requirement that local governments cut or abolish politicianallocated spending programs, although without much lasting success. Local politicians, for obvious
reasons, tend to be hostile to accepting discontinuation of direct MP funding as a condition of
broader aid packages, often claiming, as we have seen, that such funds are a more effective and
responsive tool for securing local service delivery. Such relaxed perspectives have, in some cases, been
embraced by donors or their advisors, often simply because external insistence on cuts is unlikely to
prove effective or because this may jeopardize domestic support for broader reform packages, or as a
response to frustration at the inability of Melanesian governments to get money and services out to
remote and impoverished rural areas. 42
As a result, aid conditionality has increasingly been directed toward improved
administration and accountability of PAE programs, not abolishing them or restricting spending—
but again, without much success. Hostility to PAE schemes is not merely a feature of external
pressures. Within PNG and Solomon Islands, criticism of abuses of politician funds is also
widespread and increasing in intensity, particularly, but not exclusively, in the urban centers and
among organized civil society groups. Even if donors choose, for pragmatic reasons, not to place
conditions on loans that require the diminution of the large PAE spending packages in PNG and
Solomon Islands, they should at least avoid endorsing the kinds of analyses that depict such schemes
as potentially positive instruments for improving the functioning of states.
There is a strong case for refocusing contemporary discussion of MP discretionary funding
in Western Melanesia. Schemes that supplement wages or provide small allocations for spending in
MPs’ constituencies, as in Vanuatu, may broker otherwise-lacking lines of connection to the state,
even if abuses are widespread and the extent of disbursal is uncertain. More problematic are the
larger schemes through which volatile government surpluses, arising from aid or natural resource
industries, are recycled through politicians instead of being deployed to strengthen state capacity.
Given the preponderance of rural subsistence agriculturalists in Western Melanesian populations,
42
Francis Fukuyama, serving as a consultant for the World Bank in PNG, argued that “part of the reason that the District
Support Grants (DSGs) exist is that the provincial and local administrations in many parts of the country are ineffective and
lack the capacity to provide basic public services. DSGs give legislators a way of bypassing this bureaucracy and delivering
resources directly to constituents. While, in theory, it would certainly be preferable to distribute government resources through
the regular bureaucracy, abolishing DSGs will not make this happen. It is far more plausible that an MP could be convinced to
distribute the DSG more fairly, thereby getting credit from a wider circle of constituents, than to agree to having the money
taken away altogether” (Fukuyama 2007:14). However, this perspective neglects the fact that PAEs may reinforce the
deterioration of state service provision and offers no approach to dealing with that deterioration. Reliance on appeals to MPs to
distribute “more fairly” seems naïve.
322
The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
domestic taxes (including sales taxes) tend to be raised from only a narrow section of the population,
which, for better or worse, lacks much influence over government. If scarce, externally generated
resources or enclave-extractive, industry-generated government revenues are used over the longer run
to fund politician spending, this leaves few alternative resources to strengthen state service delivery.
Personalized disbursal of state project funding is thus symptomatic of a broader problem of
building effective states in capital-poor countries with heavy reliance on subsistence agriculture,
rather than being its cause. Unless this is addressed, the result—with or without MP slush funds—is
likely to be the continuation and intensification of the atrophy of Western Melanesian states.
The Atrophied State
323
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14 Aid, Dutch Disease,
and the Pacific1
by Jonathan Gouy
ABSTRACT
Does foreign aid have “resource curse” type impacts in developing countries, similar to those
associated with windfall revenues earned from nonrenewable resources? Windfalls can have adverse
macroeconomic, fiscal, monetary, and governance consequences. This study tests for the presence of
one possible “resource curse” effect, that might result from development assistance to Pacific island
countries. The supposition is that aid reduces recipient governments' proclivity to collect tax
revenues from citizens. This study finds no reliable evidence for this theory: the regression results
suggest that aid contributes to higher, not lower, revenues (excluding aid). Although the effect
cannot be proved empirically, the impacts of aid literature concludes that aid needs to be provided
with these risks understood. The consensus is that donors should be careful when increasing aid to
avoid overwhelming domestic markets, lessening incentives for reform, and contributing to poorer
governance. Large increases in purchases of non-traded goods, services, and labor pose the greatest
risk of overwhelming or destabilizing the economies of small, aid-dependent countries. The
provision of imported capital goods and technical assistance largely removes this risk. The
governance impacts are viewed as more substantial. The key lessons for development agencies are
(i) slow or reduce proliferation of aid activities by increasing sector and country specialization and
rationalizing among individual donors; (ii) use technical assistance that increases the chances of
sensible policy reforms, but provide it in response to, rather than in anticipation of, domestic policy
processes or reform opportunities; (iii) avoid drawing recipient governments into policy engagements
that entail expenditure commitments with uncertain returns or a low probability of payoffs.
1. Introduction
There has been much work undertaken to assess the economy-wide impacts of one-off windfalls,
which have been experienced by many countries at different times. Much of the earliest work in this
area resulted from analysis of the macroeconomic impacts of large resource projects, particularly
1
For the purposes of this paper and data permitting, the Pacific includes the Cook Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, Guam (United
States), Kiribati, the Republic of Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, Northern
Mariana Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tokalau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
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The Political Economy of Economic Reform in the Pacific
minerals and hydrocarbons. This work identified that, for governments, there are dilemmas in
choosing the optimal use and distribution of these windfalls, especially how and to whom they
should be allocated, and what share should be preserved for future generations. Another issue
identified for macroeconomic management is the potential loss of competitiveness that might be
experienced by the private, non-resource export sector. This sector might suffer from a higher real
exchange rate, making its exports more costly, and higher costs for domestic inputs, because labor
and capital become more expensive due to demand from with the booming resource sector.
A second key group of potential impacts are those affecting the behavior of governments. A
wide range of research has postulated that windfall resources make the job of earning revenues
relatively easy for governments; they do not face pressures to provide the services their taxpayers
desire, or have an incentive to focus on productive projects, or undertake beneficial reforms. It has
also been argued that large revenues from resource projects might contribute to, or encourage poorer
governance. The consensus from the literature is that countries rich in natural resources experience
slower per capita real income growth than those with fewer natural resources. This mix of potential
macroeconomic, political–economic, and governance impacts has been variously described as “Dutch
disease” (The Economist 1977) or the “resource curse” (Sachs and Warner 1995).
Is Aid Also a Curse?
Foreign aid shares some, but not all, characteristics with resource windfalls. Resource windfalls are
received by governments as unconditional tax revenues, whereas aid is primarily provided
conditionally, and much of it in-kind. Aid and resource windfalls share the characteristic of
increasing rapidly and being of macroeconomic significance such as in the new Timor-Leste. Aid and
natural resources have uncertain timing for increases, decreases, or cessation. Annual aid volumes are
also volatile from period to period, reflecting both exchange rate movements and the gaps between
aid givers' intentions, commitments, and disbursements.
Some have expressed concern that high levels of foreign aid might also cause a resource
curse with similar macroeconomic impacts, and could erode the quality of governance that poor
countries need for sustained and rapid income growth. These issues of macroeconomic and
governance impacts of aid on the Pacific island countries (PICs) are of great relevance at present. Aid
flows have exceeded 100% of gross national income (GNI) in some PICs. They are set to rise further
in real terms, with greater interest in providing aid to the Pacific by North Asian countries and
Australia's plan to expand its overall aid budget to 0.5% of GNI by 2015.
About This Paper
This paper outlines the conceptual issues, analysis, and empirical evidence around aid and possible
“Dutch disease” and “resource curse” impacts through the lens of the PICs. It presents data on the
nature and trends in donor spending in the region and brings